


Fierce And Barely Concealed

by verybadhedgehog



Series: Asking Too Much [1]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Anal Sex, Dysfunctional Relationships, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotionally Repressed, Hand Jobs, M/M, Mention of alcohol, Mild Dissociation, Night Terrors, Oral Sex, Rimming, Sex as self-medication, Snark, engineering project management, extra-judicial killing of third party contractors, military industrial complex, see chapter notes for content notes, violence to property
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-30
Updated: 2016-05-30
Packaged: 2018-06-08 06:08:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 21,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6841996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/verybadhedgehog/pseuds/verybadhedgehog
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Against a backdrop of pre-commissioning test scheduling on the Starkiller project, Kylo and Hux have a series of encounters that turn into a dysfunctional arrangement and, eventually, almost a routine.  Hux's skills at engineering project management are many orders of magnitude better than his skills at dealing with emotions.<br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Bold Assertion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kylo Ren gatecrashes a project management meeting on Starkiller Base and makes a nuisance of himself.

“You want me.”

General Hux twitched his lip in well-practised disdain. “That is a bold assertion,” he said, raising his eyebrows just a few careful millimetres, “even for you.” 

“An assertion which you do not deny.” Kylo’s voice was, as always, made artificially harsh by his helmet.

Hux stared at him, holding his gaze level and blinking deliberately, each blink serving as if to say, “Well? Well then? What?”

“I feel the desperation flowing from you.”

Hux took in a long breath and let it out in a measured sigh. “I am very busy. I do not have the time for this nonsense.”

Kylo reached out his hands, grasped the General’s wrists and brought both hands to his own chest. 

This was utter madness. It would not be stood for. It would be calmly and firmly challenged.

“What are you doing?”

Hux continued to stare into the eye slit of Kylo’s mask, seeking out the eyes beneath, staring, wanting the damned Knight to know that intimidation was not a one way process and he was going to give as good as he bloody well got. He flattened his hands against the Knight’s chest, against the bulk of him. Through his leather gloves and through several layers of fabric, Hux felt warmth, a persistent, invasive, intoxicating warmth. Sometimes, when they stood close together, he swore he could feel the warmth coming off Kylo Ren. It was, like everything else about the man, excessive. At times, it was as if the warmth followed him around, bothering him even when Ren was mercifully distant.

“This is both ridiculous and pointless. I am a busy man.” Hux glanced down at his hands, rising and falling with Ren’s breaths, then looked back up at the mask, daring Ren to let go of him.

Once released, Hux made a perfect about-face and headed for the door.

“General Hux.”

Hux paused.

The unmistakeable sounds of Ren’s mask unlatching had him making another perfect turn.

Ren held his helmet loosely by his side. His face was flushed, and his lips slightly parted. With a little effort, he gathered himself.

Hux already wore his habitual expression.

“Your pretty face tells a lot of lies,” Ren said.

“Your face is incapable of that, it seems. But, Ren, I do not need to see your blushing face.” Hux stepped forwards and placed his hands back on Ren’s chest, slowly spreading his fingers against the black fabric. “I saw how your shoulders rose and fell. I felt your heartbeat quicken. I did not need to see your face. I was not as desperate to see your blushes as you apparently were to show them to me.”

Kylo Ren’s mouth fell further open, and he blinked his gaze away, weakened.

Hux neatly took his hands from Ren’s chest for the second time, clasped them behind his back and strode from the room.

Ren’s damnable warmth followed him down the corridor.

 

***

 

General Hux marched crisply through the flight deck, towards the shuttle waiting to take him down to the ice planet, to his Starkiller. He acknowledged the salutes of Colonel Datoo, three of his juniors, and a young officer from the Engineering Corps.

“Good morning, sir. Major Linod has kindly offered to pre-brief us.”

“Continue, Major.”

“General Hux, sir.” Major Linod nodded respectfully. “Just a few broad strokes before the meeting proper. Level 3 pre-commissioning schedule is in progress, Facilities have final testing documentation for piping and HVAC in the senior officer accommodation modules; the main items on the agenda are the schedule for thermal shock testing in zones 1-4 and…” 

The Major looked over Hux’s shoulder. On her face sat more than a hint of worry and annoyance.

_Oh, he isn’t._

Hux resisted turning around to see. And, indeed, he could already hear a heavy footfall, more bruising than the boots of an officer or a Stormtrooper.

 _Kylo bloody Ren. Joy of joys._  

“General Hux!”

Hux finally turned to face him. “Ren. Good morning.”

“I am attending the meeting.”

Hux inhaled sharply and allowed himself to at least imagine saying, _“No, you are not. Kindly fuck off back to your disgusting lair,”_ to Ren, in front of five subordinates.

“Are you. How pleasant for all of us,” he said instead.

“I take an interest in progress.” The Knight’s flat, robotic tone seemed to dare Hux to contradict him.

“This is quite a technical meeting, Ren. I doubt you find scheduling and systems engineering as interesting as I do.”

“I am attending the meeting. I may wish to contribute.”

 _Good. Splendid. Fantastic_.

Officers and Knight embarked the shuttle and took their seats. Major Linod, seated opposite Hux and Datoo, datapad on her lap, raised an eyebrow and tilted her head subtly towards Ren. Both Hux and Datoo indicated no. Kylo Ren would not appreciate a pre-briefing.

 

***

 

The meeting went tolerably well, after a rocky start. An officer from Starfighter Support reported that materials for lining the auxiliary fuel tanks on Starkiller’s TIE base had failed quality checks, for the second time in a row. Supply chain problems at this stage in proceedings were most unwelcome. Major Linod immediately undertook to chase the issue with the supplier, promising to give them a laser cannon up the backside and asserting that they would sort their quality issues out or risk the coordinates of their factory being entered into Starkiller’s targeting system. Hux liked her zeal, although her demeanour could possibly be dialled back one or two clicks. He also took the opportunity to underline how important it was that every single person flagged up any problems as soon as they happened, and reported discrepancies and faults to their superior immediately. 

Colonel Datoo had a brief question about a handoff meeting between instrumentation engineers and his firing control room technicians, and showed appreciation for the work put in by Engineering Corps and trooper brigades alike. Datoo took great pride in Starkiller and in his role within it, and Hux approved strongly. He was a good example to the younger officers of the virtues of dedication and a calm, methodical approach.

Hux could sense behind him the disruptive presence of one who was not a good example of a methodical approach. At least he had stopped pacing. Some officers and engineers present had been visibly perturbed by Ren’s heavy footsteps behind them as they tried to give their reports. It would not do.

During the mandated drinks break, Colonel Datoo approached, stiff-backed and clutching a steaming mug in front of his chest.

“Sir, may I ask a question? Regarding the last-minute attendee.”

“Go ahead, Colonel.”

“We had no notice that he would be present. I hope I am not overstepping my rank to ask, but did you, sir?”

“Hmm. You are either accusing me of springing Kylo Ren on you all as some sort of caprice,” Hux tightened his cheek in a sour half-smile, and Datoo stiffened, “or you are expressing concern that I am not being kept ‘in the loop’ so to speak…”

“Not at all, sir.”

Hux then appeared to thaw slightly. “Rephrase. Ask me what you actually intended to ask me.”

Datoo leant in and whispered, “Is he here under express orders of the Supreme Leader, sir? In your opinion. Or is he, for want of a better phrase, simply poking his nose in for the hell of it?”

“What passes between the Supreme Leader and his apprentice is not your concern. I would say that all of us take a great interest in progress on Starkiller. Even Ren, _apparently_.”  

Hux took a sip from his mug of somewhat disappointing caf. Datoo would be intelligent enough to read between the lines and discern that _of course the interfering bastard isn’t bloody here on orders_.

The next item on the day’s agenda was a visit “out in the field” to meet with and observe an operations team working on one of Starkiller’s crystal arrays, all the way out in precinct 63. The journey to the job site would be by base defence walker, in order to showcase the walker’s suitability to the terrain and thus by extension the First Order’s military might. This was all very well, but Hux himself would have preferred to go by a small fleet of snow speeders – even an open cargo trailer towed behind a snow speeder would have been preferable from the point of view of comfort. Hux did not enjoy traveling by walker under any circumstances: it was noisy, it lurched in a frankly sickening fashion, the vibrations it made at every step were extremely unpleasant, and its aluminium/steel body did not do nearly enough to insulate against external conditions. 

This particular journey was all the more unpleasant because Hux found himself strapped in next to Kylo Ren, who sat with his legs spread unnecessarily wide. One of Ren’s knees nudged insistently into Hux’s leg every time the damned walker took a step. 

After fifteen lifetime-long minutes of lurching, noise, cold, and knee, they arrived at precinct 63.  The crystal array itself would be reached through a short tunnel. At the entrance to the tunnel, the walker knelt in a sickening, swaying motion. All personnel dismounted, then subtly stretched their legs and cracked their necks. Major Linod spoke to a stormtrooper sergeant, who handed out personal protective equipment. Of course, Kylo Ren, being an uninvited guest, had not been provided for. _Well, at least he has brought his own hard hat_ , Hux thought.

Inside a rock-hewn chamber, a work crew of technicians, assisted by troopers, were manoeuvring shielding materials into place around a matrix of kyber crystals. They were making a reasonable job of it, until they noticed that they were being observed by a black-cloaked figure with his fists tightly clenched.

“Lay people have no respect for the crystals.”

The technicians looked absolutely terrified.

“I am quite pleased with progress here so far”, Hux said, in an attempt to mollify the technicians. “When will we be running energy through here – when is hot testing scheduled?”

“That depends on the schedule for energy feed-through, sir. Dark energy plant team are coordinating with us, sir.”

“Home-grown plasma or full solar feed-in?”

There was a pause. Either nobody knew the answer (bad) or they had been too intimidated by Kylo Ren to speak up promptly (also bad). Hux turned to Major Linod.

“Major?”

“Dark energy team are set for startup in week 213. We plan for home-grown plasma initially, although if solar gathering team hit their schedule, we can take a small solar feed-in.”

“The thermal oscillator has not run at capacity, am I correct?”

“Yes sir. We have run the oscillator to limited capacity.”

“Check current parameters, coordinate with dark energy team and solar gathering team, report to Colonel Havord and Colonel Datoo, and to me. Document all changes in FirstProject. I am sure you do that anyway.”

“Yes, sir.”

Hux was grateful that Major Linod had the facts at her fingertips. Her tone of voice in this instance had seemed to suggest that the solar team were unlikely to meet their target date. Capacity to feed in plasma generated on-site did mean that dark energy feed-through was not dependent on solar generation tasks, but if there was going to be slippage in the schedules, then he needed to know about it. He would have liked to ask her quietly for more details, but felt he couldn’t with Kylo Ren looming over everyone and putting them off their stroke.

 

***

 

“Walk with me, General. I would speak with you privately.”

Kylo Ren set off at such a pace that Hux had to unclasp his hands from behind his back in order to maintain his stride.  

“You could speak with me privately by booking a meeting like a normal person,” he hissed. “Insinuating yourself into an important project meeting and then dragging me away when we might be interrupted at any moment is not first-class strategy. Even for you.”

“Perhaps.”

The corridor took a sharp right turn.

“If you wanted a one-on-one meeting badly enough, I could have invited you to my office or my quarters.”

“Hmm.”

The back of Hux’s neck was hot, and he felt a heightened awareness of his own limbs as he strode beside Ren.

 Between two tall transparisteel viewports stood an access point to one of Level Three’s several gun emplacements. It opened conveniently for Ren, without the need for an access code. The freezing outdoor air was welcome on Hux’s neck, even as he gathered his greatcoat around his body.

 In the distance, a vehicle could be heard backing up, then, when it stopped, almost nothing at all. 

“You should let me help.”

“I should _let_ you _help_ , Ren?”

“My skills would be useful. I can feel things. I can sense weakness.”

General Hux sighed. “I don’t doubt your immense power, simply that it is the best tool for the job.”

“I assisted Supreme Leader Snoke in finding this planet. I assisted in locating the underground chambers and the crystal deposits. I can assist at this stage.”  Even with Kylo Ren’s voice modulated, it was not difficult for Hux to determine that he was sulking, and quite probably pouting. People on the whole were not hard to read. Even those who hid themselves behind armour and face masks gave themselves away: body movements, speech patterns; it all added up. And once one had seen the real face and heard the real voice, one could imagine them in place of the dented bucket and the over modulated bark.

“I cannot put it any more clearly than I already have. Systems testing is best done by specialist engineers, under the supervision of commissioning engineers. Those are the best tools for the job.”

“I could feel, in the Force, hidden faults.”

“Ren, be bloody reasonable: I am sure you are capable of it, deep down. There are kilometres of pipework in this installation. Thousands and thousands of welds. Pressure chambers. Crystal arrays. Thermal oscillator resonance stacks. Kilometres of wiring; control and instrumentation systems for every subsystem in every sector. Even if your powers were one hundred percent infallible, you simply would not have the time to inspect everything.” Hux made a dismissive, mocking wave of his hand, a faux Force-gesture. “It would be a bottleneck. A log jam. We try to avoid those.”

“Your reputation for intelligence seems ill-deserved, General. You certainly have a great gift for being obtuse to the point of boneheaded stupidity. I do not want to inspect every single control loop, every single weld. I am well aware you have droids for that.”

Hux felt the Knight approach even closer. His presence, his damned warmth, even out here on this cold platform.

“I am offering to show you areas of weakness. Places where failures might occur.” Ren spoke slowly, softly. It sounded almost obscene, even without subtracting the artificial harshness of the mask.

“Ren, we have done failure mode and effects analysis. We did it at an appropriate time in the design process.” Hux wished someone had done a failure mode and effects analysis on Kylo Ren. He could sketch out the bare bones for them any time they liked. 

“You do not understand or respect the powers and mysteries of the Force.”

“My opinions on the mysteries of the Force are neither here nor there. This is a heavy engineering project, and we are going to do things the Engineering Corps way. I won’t have you undermining my people. You will leave it to me.”

Ren gave a brittle, metallic sigh. “I leave it to you.”

“Is that really what you tagged along with me for? To sit in on a scheduling meeting, rub your leg against mine in a defence walker, loom threateningly over a perfectly competent operations team, and demand to do QA with the Force?”

Ren was still standing too close, and Hux was still not moving away.

“Take this thing off,” Hux tapped Ren’s mask with a forefinger, making Ren instinctively rear back just a little bit, “look me in the eye like a gentleman and tell me what the fuck you think you’re playing at.”

It was, though rare, always extremely gratifying to see Kylo Ren do as he was told. Helmet now removed, Ren glared at Hux.

“Your abilities are limited. I offered you my help. Being the self-centred, ungrateful, stupid man you are, you turned me down.”

Hux rolled his eyes. “Stop playing around. Did you invite yourself along purely to annoy me, or is there something else you wanted?”

Kylo Ren’s stare lost some of its ferocity and became flatter, more mulish, more insolent. He was daring Hux to do something. Something that would suit a maddening, rude, childish man with no professional boundaries. Hux thought for a moment of seizing Ren’s cowl, yanking him forward, and kissing him, harshly and fiercely. It would be a neat, temporary win, and for the sake of the medium to long term plan, it was a temptation that must be resisted.

Instead, he held Ren’s gaze and breathed the cold air.

Ren was already standing too close. Close enough that Hux could watch him breathe, faster and deeper than would have been the norm; faster and deeper than was appropriate. Closer and closer, with every chance to stop and no chance taken. 

Kylo Ren’s lips had rough dry patches, where he was in the habit of biting them. In between those patches, as they pressed against Hux’s lips, they were soft. He tasted of fennel seed sweets and not of the caf and biscuits that had been served during the break in the meeting. 

Now that they were both complicit in it, Hux found that he simply did not care if it were a stupid or reckless thing to do. Ren was kissing him back clumsily with too much teeth and tongue, his overly long nose was pressing into Hux’s cheek, and one of his overly large hands was pressing between Hux’s shoulder blades, grasping the fabric of his greatcoat. 

Then, suddenly, it wasn’t. Ren pushed Hux from him and turned away, gripping the railing. 

“That,” he said, voice shaking with emotion, “was a mistake.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So much fun with the engineering project management stuff in this chapter. Yes, of course the First Order have their own project management software.  
> Also I love Major Linod, and it hurts my heart that she probably perished with Starkiller, because the commissioning team would have been scheduled to stay on for the first few weeks after startup and first firing. Hux wanted to fast-track her promotion, too. It is inevitable that we should get attached to our OCs.


	2. A First Desperate Grasp

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hux considers his game plan. Kylo manufactures conflict in an attempt to get what he wants.

Quite possibly it had been a mistake. They could have been grasping and pawing at each other after almost any given argument. Hux had made a conscious decision that he wouldn’t be doing that. The heat of fury he felt when dealing with Kylo Ren would push close to the line and almost cross over into regrettable passion, but he would always hold it back.

If he was going to actually do this thing, if he was going to succumb to his inappropriate desires, he would make sure they took a better route. To be more accurate and a little fairer to himself, he was not the only one in the grip of inappropriate desire. Kylo Ren would be made to reckon with his _own_ barely concealed lusts. There would be a seduction, and it would be Hux’s little victory. 

There had been a somewhat regrettable moment of madness, out on that gun emplacement platform. Mutually engaged in as it had been, the kiss was rash and premature. Hux had failed to resist temptation, and had made an uncharacteristic strategic error. He needed to focus and regroup and reassess.

Ren had goaded him into it. That was what his absurd childish behaviour was all about. Crashing a meeting, making a nuisance of himself, dragging him away for some alone time. Hux would simply wait and see what happened, and next time, he would remain in control. There would be an opportunity to offer Ren what he needed, and an opportunity to use some personal skills than had long gone under-utilised. As much as he would continue to dislike Ren intensely throughout, it would be a pleasure.

As it turned out, he didn’t have to wait particularly long. 

It began with a disagreement over troop deployment. Hux was taking the _Finalizer_ to the nearby Dusan system and planned to send four squadrons of TIE fighters and five hundred troops in an assault on the administrative capital of Dusan II. It was a small target world, but he, and the Supreme Leader, felt it had strategic importance. He might have preferred to stay orbiting Starkiller, but Dusan was less than eight hours away and the personnel working on Starkiller were surely capable of being left alone for a day. Captain Phasma had selected the stormtrooper units who were to take part in the offensive; and all was, so General Hux thought, in order.

Ren came thudding onto the bridge.

“Five hundred? You need seven hundred.”

“We need five hundred, Ren, we are sending five hundred. If the people of Dusan know what’s best, they will sign themselves over as soon as we enter orbit. And, if not, it is a fairly textbook operation for which they have been meticulously drilled.”

“You should send the TK troops. Don’t send the RS troops. They aren’t ready.”

“If you think the RS units are not ready, take it up with Captain Phasma. They are her troops. She says they are ready. They are ready.”

“You speak with great confidence, General.”

“I do.”

“Confidence ill befitting a man with no practical experience of warfare. How would you know if a unit of fighters was ready for battle?”

Hux gritted his teeth against the insult. “Firstly, any sufficiently sophisticated simulation is indistinguishable from reality. Secondly, Phasma is the commander of the Stormtrooper forces. If you genuinely disagreed with her, you would be taking it up with her, not me.”

“Why are we making an assault on Dusan II before we follow up intel on Dusan III?”

“It’s very flimsy intel, for one thing.” Hux gave him a look. “Not in front of everyone. My office, I think.”

Once the door closed behind them, it was clear that Ren had been picking a fight for the sake of it.

“Ren, we have the barest hint of a rumour of Church of the Force operatives…”

“If your think your spy network is inadequate, General, reinforce it.”

“ _My_ spy network? You recruited this agent, Ren. You did. Forgive my bold approach, but I’m barely fucking surprised they can give us little more than insubstantial rumour.”

Ren pushed him against the wall. Hux went willingly, with a sharp rush of excitement in his chest, but kept his chin up in defiance. ”You like this,” Ren said. “Fighting against me. It’s the closest thing you have to what you really want.”

“What about you, Ren?” Hux tucked a hand onto Ren’s broad, warm back and held it there with light pressure. “Picking a fight over a trivial, practically non-existent disagreement. Don’t think I don’t notice your clumsy attempts to orchestrate conflict. It’s amateurish.”

He pulled Ren closer, slotting his thigh between Ren’s legs. Beneath the Knight Commander’s excessive layers, he was, unmistakably, getting hard. 

“The closest thing, Ren, to what you really want,” he said, tilting his hips just enough to provide a little friction, just enough for Ren to know that he was there, and know that he knew it, that he felt it. He allowed himself a brief indulgence of fantasy, of staying here and rutting against Ren’s leg in an increasingly jerky and ecstatic fashion until one or both of them spoiled their clothes. He stayed the thought, and gracefully detached himself. The process would continue at the correct pace and in an orderly fashion.

“Really, I hope your little mission is a success. I would rather not have to waste personnel and droids on cleaning up after the mess you make when you don’t get what you want. Now, out.” 

Ren exited.

Hux took several deep breaths and thought very intently about backgammon strategy and nickel-based superalloys for a minute or two. He then summoned Captain Phasma.

The redoubtable woman in chrome was with him in short order. He returned her salute and got straight to the point. 

“Has Kylo Ren expressed to you any misgivings about the readiness of our Stormtrooper units?”

“No, sir. Why? Has he expressed concerns to you?”

“Yes. The RS units.”

“The RS units score very highly and I can vouch for their combat readiness. As can you. And as can Ren. He has personally seen them train.”

“As I thought.”

“I have no idea what his problem can be. He is always open with me about such matters.”

“Phasma, I shall be honest. It’s apparent to me that Ren is manufacturing false concerns so that he can bring discord between us.”

Phasma laughed. “There is quite enough discord between the two of you without having to invent more.”

“Indeed so. Hell alone knows what he thinks he’ll achieve by it,” Hux said, while being perfectly well aware of what Ren was intending to achieve by it.

“He has his little moods. But he never questions my command of the troopers.”

“I don’t doubt that he has the utmost faith in you, as do I.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“I didn’t allow him to question your judgement, Captain. I challenged him to take the matter up with you if he genuinely believed it. He backed down.”

“Again, thank you, sir. If he doesn’t really mean it, I doubt very much he’ll say it to my face or in my hearing.” She let out another hollow laugh. “I can’t very well send him to reconditioning, after all.”

“No indeed, Captain.”

 

***

 

The conference room on the _Finalizer_ was, unsurprisingly, cold. It would always be difficult to heat a large open chamber with a high ceiling. Hux knew that the conference and assembly room on Starkiller would, being larger, be even colder. The Engineering Corps’ piping and HVAC team had promised state of the art under seat heating ducts and an area of underfloor heating in front of the holoprojection stage, but Hux knew that when push came to shove, it was going to be cold. Just like the conference room on the _Finalizer_ ; where he stood, greatcoat on, cold, waiting for Kylo Ren to join him and attend a holographic manifestation of Supreme Leader Snoke.

Ren stomped into the conference room, and Snoke’s holoprojection flickered into place. Ren reported of his mission to Dusan III. It still seemed petty to Hux. Two low ranking prisoners taken and as of yet precious little new intelligence extracted.

“I am pleased, Kylo Ren,” intoned Snoke’s grey projection.

“It is an honour to serve, Supreme Leader.” Ren bowed his head. Pathetic, really, thought Hux.

“General Hux!”

Hux inclined his head in a reverse nod. “Supreme Leader.”

“You have done well. The inhabitants of this little system will place themselves willingly under First Order control. Even the low-hanging fruit are worth picking.”

Snoke seemed almost dismissive of Hux’s operation. It hadn’t been sold to him as a “little” mission or as low-hanging fruit when Snoke had suggested it in the first place. Yet Snoke was disproportionately pleased with Ren’s paltry achievement. 

“You are proud of your soldiers, General, and rightly so.”

“I am proud of what we achieve in the service of the First Order”

“Yet you are not pleased for my apprentice, and what he has achieved.” Snoke raised a ghostly eyebrow and continued, in a purring tone, “You do not appreciate.”

Kylo Ren seemed to stand even taller. Hux held back a snarl, reducing it to a brief twitch of his face.

“You are making progress with the weapon. It is vital to our victory. I am pleased. And my apprentice is equally pleased, I am sure.”

“Yes, Supreme Leader. I follow with interest progress on the base.”

Hux seethed internally at Ren’s appalling brass neck.

Snoke looked approvingly at Ren. It was bloody sickening. He spoke again. “The greatest threat to our victory is not the Republic, nor the Resistance, but the Jedi. We must prevent their return. If we do not find the place I seek, we cannot be sure of doing so.”

General Hux looked expectantly at Snoke, hoping for some more concrete pronouncement to follow. It did, in a way.

“And all you have worked for will be in vain.”

Snoke’s holoprojection flickered and blinked away.

Kylo Ren could not, it seemed, resist an opportunity to gloat. 

“Play with your soldiers all you like, but without me, it’s nothing. You heard the Supreme Leader as well as I did”

The two strode side by side from the _Finalizer_ ’s conference room. Hux put great effort into appearing as proud and confident as he had been when he walked in.

“And you heard how vital our weapon is to victory. We will have victory, I will see to it.”

“You try to disregard me. I am integral to the success of your project. You don’t achieve or accomplish on your own.”

“I achieve and accomplish as part of the First Order, in command of First Order military personnel. I do not act for personal gain or pride.”

Kylo Ren laughed abruptly. “All for the glory of the First Order, and nothing at all for the personal glory of General Hux and his petty ego? You tell such lies.” He continued, speaking as softly as his vocabulator allowed, “You desire me. Still. It troubles you greatly. Your attempted disregard will not bind that wound either. Neglect will not save you.”

“This, from the man who… no. No. I don’t pander to my personal needs, Ren. I work, I achieve, I accomplish. With or without you.” He fought to tamp down the fury within him.

From the man who had manufactured disagreement purely to get the opportunity to take the argument into Hux’s private office, purely in order to grasp him and press sensually against him, this was intolerable. _How dare he._

He wanted to order Ren back to his office and make him admit out loud that he wanted him too. He wanted to tear the ridiculous drapery from him and make him beg to be touched. He wanted to be bent over his own desk and pinned under Ren’s bulk, and he equally wanted Ren on his knees, pathetically mouthing at him, hands behind his bloody back probably, looking up with those big stupid eyes and pleading.

That night, he cursed Kylo Ren with a passion.

 

***

 

The following day, Hux considered that it was high time he got a debriefing on Ren’s mission, seeing as the Supreme Leader considered it of such vital frigging import. He made his way to the _Finalizer_ ’s detention centre, expecting to wait calmly outside a cell for perhaps five minutes, or maybe to run into Ren on the way to the command deck ready to report (chance would be a fine thing) or at least to be briefed by a guard as to where Ren was, who he was interrogating, and how long he would expect to take. He did not expect to hear the sound of bellowing rage interspersed with the throaty hum of Ren’s unruly lightsaber.

“No! Fucking HELL. No!”

Kylo Ren continued to slash powerfully at the durasteel wall.

“Ren. I think you should stop that now. Put it away.”

“USELESS.” 

It was itchingly tempting to scold Ren harshly. Better, though, at this stage, Hux thought, to appear calm. Perhaps even quietly understanding, if he could manage it.  

“Shush, please. Stop now. Now.”

Kylo switched off his lightsaber. With a zipping sound, the blade retreated into the hilt. He hooked it back onto his belt, and his shoulders heaved with effort and emotion.

“The prisoners know nothing.”

“Oh.”

“Yes, General. Now you can gloat. Run as fast as your skinny little legs will carry you to announce it to everyone. Call an emergency meeting with the Supreme Leader to tell him that despite his confidence in me, it’s slipped through my grasp again.”

Hux placed a hand on Ren’s forearm. He was burning hot. “What happened?”

“Nothing fucking happened. These dumb shits,” he gestured towards the holding cells in which the two prisoners from Dusan were being kept, “know nothing.”

“Life is full of, as you say, dumb shits who know nothing. We navigate it as best we can.”

“That’s fine for you: a smug asshole. I am required to to get information from these people, and they don’t have it. What they have in their stupid heads is worthless.”

“OK.” The task of remaining just the right side of scathing and just the right side of encouraging was best done with few words.

“I seek a certain location. Supreme Leader Snoke seeks that location. It is immensely powerful in the Force. As is written in old Jedi lore. Some of these Jedi-sympathisers may know some of this lore.”

Hux nodded.

“But these, they only think they know. This whole thing has been a dead end. All they could tell me, all I could tear out of them, was the same old rumour. We have already proven it to be false.”

“I see.”  

“They think it’s among dusty ochre rocks surrounded by low scrub. They think it’s on Isthan. It isn’t. I’ve been there, years ago. It was a waste of time then. This was a waste of time.”

The temptation to say “I told you so” was almost unbearable. Instead he said, “What a shame nobody has made you a map. X marks the spot.”

 

***

 

It was two days later before there was another physical encounter.

 Walking side by side down a hallway, the Knight of Ren looming close in Hux’s personal space, walking just a little oppressively too close, even closer than was his already unsettling habit, they drew level with a storage room entrance, and it happened again. Kylo Ren bundled Hux through the doorway with what was surely a combination of physical power and Force power, and pinned him up against the wall. 

“Another private meeting?” said Hux, in an attempt at his usual clipped tones. The Knight’s robes and body pressed heavily against him, and he could hear the distorted metallic sound of heavy breathing coming from the slitted mask a hand’s width from his face. 

Ren took his hands from Hux’s wrists, and held him into the wall with his powerful muscular chest and legs, lifting his hands to his mask to unclip the latches. Hux did not raise his hands to try to push Ren off. It would have been futile even if he had wanted to detach Ren’s warm, heavy body from him. 

Kylo Ren unclipped his helmet and dropped it to the floor. It clattered and came to rest against a shelving unit. He looked at Hux with apparent disgust.

“I return to you,” Ren said softly, “like a dog to its vomit.” The contempt on his face shifted into a sick, perverted eagerness. “And,” he continued, licking the side of Hux’s face from his jawbone to his eyebrow, “oh, how good you taste.”

Hux almost laughed at Ren’s ludicrous phrasing and the fact he’d obviously spent some time thinking it up. He found himself instead shuddering through the sensation of the warm, wet tongue slicking against his cheek. It was, on top of being ridiculously theatrical, actually somewhat disgusting. Despite that, he felt desire clutch in his stomach and pull at him. In the same way that most things about Ren were, it was appalling, compelling, hideous and fascinating.

Ren slid one knee between Hux’s thighs, and ground his hips deep and violently against Hux. Too much, too fast, and with no finesse. Utterly typical.

The warmth and strength of Ren’s body were intoxicating, though, and even more so was the knowledge that Kylo was doing this out of his own desire and desperation, because he was the one who could not keep away. 

The pressure of Ren’s erection against his thigh and his tongue against his neck only served to underline that all was going according to Hux’s plan. He shifted his hips against Ren and wished there were fewer layers of heavy robes between them.

The sound of officers’ boots passed by in the corridor. 

One of Ren’s hands was working its way between his robes and Hux’s uniform. Hux breathed heavily in anticipation, then Ren’s gloved hand closed on the place where Hux’s cock was straining against his breeches. Hux let out a deep throaty sigh at the pressure, then said breathlessly, “That would be most welcome.” 

Ren nibbled Hux’s neck, nipping with his teeth, making Hux’s breath come in short shaky bursts; and at the same time unbuttoned Hux’s breeches, at first fumbling, then finding the correct rhythm and pace to have the whole line of buttons cascade open. A hand slipped in and roughly pulled the fabric and waistband of Hux’s underpants out of the way. Hux made a low groan as leather glove found eager, hard flesh.

“Don’t bite,” Hux commanded, as Ren’s mouth was on his jaw, tongue and teeth, sucking and nipping.

Ren traced obscene circles with his tongue along Hux’s jawline, then nipped him with his teeth again.

Hux almost let out an undignified squeal before he admonished Ren. “Don’t leave any marks on me. Don’t. I mean it.”

Ren brought his mouth to Hux’s own and kissed him, forcefully but with a little more grace than he had displayed out on Starkiller’s open air. His lips were softer this time, as though he had done something about those dry patches. Hux fell into the kiss, slipping his tongue over Ren’s, slowing its pace, and half-closing his eyes. It was good. Pleasure flooded through him from Ren’s long leather-clad fingers working their way up and down his shaft. It was good and he wanted more.

Ren sucked on Hux’s lower lip and played his tongue over it in a way that felt like a suggestion. 

“Go on, then,” Hux whispered against Ren’s luscious mouth, in answer. 

Ren dropped to his knees and lifted the hem of the General’s jacket. His wet, beautiful, strangely red lips slid over Hux’s cock. His mouth was so warm, so wet, and that damned tongue of his would not stop. It cupped the head and undulated in a way that had Hux gulping back noises in the back of his throat.

Kylo Ren’s mouth was giving the lie to the melodramatic idiocy with which he had begun this encounter. Hux thought he could probably manage to ignore Ren’s absurd pronouncements if this was what they led to. By any reckoning, he was getting his cock sucked, and he was liking it. 

“Your tongue,” he panted, reaching down and grabbing a handful of Ren’s ridiculous, non-regulation hair. “Just keep doing that.”

Kylo seemed to be enjoying himself too, by the muffled sounds and sighs he was making. Hux looked down. The harsh lighting in the storage closet made it easy to see that Kylo had just slipped a hand under his robes, a hand that seemed to be moving rhythmically. The sight of him pleasuring himself while he was sucking Hux undid something in the General, who groaned softly and bucked his hips up into that busy, warm, velvety mouth. 

Hux came with a short, low, animal moan, eyes closed, head back against the wall. Ren rapidly finished himself off, then wiped his glove on an under layer of his robes. He had replaced his mask, raised his cowl and slipped out of the closet and away before Hux had even got himself back in his underpants. 

Hux took some deep breaths to compose himself, checked as best he could that his appearance was in order, and exited the storage closet. He walked, with a very faint smile on his face, to his next meeting. He would invite Ren to see him in his quarters, and things would get properly interesting. He might finally make use of the rather uncomfortable couch that came as standard in all commanding officers’ quarters. One didn’t have to like a person at all in order to fuck them: General Hux had known that since the early days of his career.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, by, "he cursed Kylo Ren with a passion", I do mean, "he had a particularly intense angrywank about him."


	3. A Certain Amount Of Sexual Congress

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two assignations. Sucking and fucking. Look, this chapter is pretty much Ronseal (does what it says on the tin).

Kylo Ren arrived at Hux’s personal quarters exactly three minutes after the time agreed. He stood awkwardly by the door, his shoulders a little hunched. He was slightly fidgeting, flicking his thumb against the tip of a finger. Hux found this interesting.

Hux approached and stood face to battered mask with Ren. The Knight didn’t flinch or step back, but neither did he step forward and take Hux in the embrace that might have been anticipated. 

“I hope you aren’t going to pretend you aren’t interested. Not after yesterday.”

“No.”

“Good. The act was starting to wear a little thin. We aren’t awkward fourteen year olds, Ren, pulling on each other’s pigtails in class and each blaming the other.”

Ren said nothing. 

“So,” Hux asked, reaching forward and placing his hand very gently on Ren’s pleated sleeve, “are we going to do this?”

“You know what you invited me here for, General. I know what I came here for.”

“I confess, I was expecting this sort of thing to be off limits to you. Purity and all that.”

“Once again, Hux, you take a simplistic and naive view.” Ren’s gloved hand found its way to Hux’s face, caressing his cheek, then drifting over the back of his neck. The touch was light. Hux shivered. “You cannot possibly know what is forbidden, what is permitted, what is profane and what is sacred.”

“Your forwardness yesterday suggested you thought it at least permitted. Which is a step up from a ‘mistake’, isn’t it?”

Ren’s hands ran slowly down Hux’s back. “One is never so strong as when one is taking what one wants. The will is strongest, then.”  His hands rested over the curve of Hux’s arse. “Your will is strong,” he said, kneading Hux’s buttocks, “I see that in you, even though the rest of you is weak.”

It was ridiculous. Utterly laughable. And surely inevitable that any prolonged encounter with this damned man would have to pass through this groping and taunting phase. The groping was not unpleasant, however, and could easily be made more reciprocal.

Hux put his hands to Ren’s hips, found the slit at the side of his surcoat, and slipped underneath. The smooth leather of his gloves negotiated the ridges of Ren’s pleated tunic. This layer wouldn’t be breached without the performance of reaching down and pulling it up. Why the man had to wear so many layers in the first place must be another bloody sacred mystery.

Ren’s arse was surprisingly curved and firm, and quite lovely.

Hux’s breath loitered, heavy, in his throat. Hells, this was going to be fun.

“I take nothing you don’t give,” he said, pulling Ren close to him, pressing himself against him. “And I think you do consider me worthy of it. You considered me worthy of your mouth.”

“And now?” 

“You’d have to take that bloody thing off for a start.”

“I don’t unmask at your command.”

He damn well had the other day.

“So, what of _your_ mouth, General?”

“You want me on my knees, Ren?”

“Your quick thinking is renowned among the First Order.”

Hux nodded at the mask.“You should take it off anyway.”

“No. You want it like this. You want me to look the way I did when we first met. You want me without a face. That’s the way you thought of me.”

How degrading, to submit to a creature without a face. But not impossibly repellent, not by any means. More like disturbingly compelling, if he was forced to be honest.

“You want it like this on the bridge, sometimes. You consider it, when you’re in here. Thinking of me.” Ren’s hands trailed swiftly up the sides of Hux’s jacket, and found their way to his face again.

“Don’t tell me you’re reading my sexual fantasies with the Force. I’d have noticed.”

“I know what kind of a man you are, and I know how you want me.” He brushed his fingers over Hux’s mouth.

Hux opened his mouth and let two of Kylo’s fingers slip between his lips. With his tongue, he welcomed them, closing his mouth against glove leather and suckling them gently. Behind Kylo’s mask, he could hear heavy breathing, too quiet to be picked up by the vocabulator, but close enough to be heard.

Hux felt his mouth get wetter as he sucked on Kylo’s fingers, lavishing his tongue between them. He finally raised his hand to nudge them away and out of his mouth. “Sit on the couch,” he commanded. He half expected a sarcastic comment from Kylo, asking him if this were the place where he serviced all his colleagues, but none came. Kylo simply walked to the couch and sat. Hux looked down at him, savouring the sight of him; the fearsome Knight in all his brutal strength, sitting with his hands by his sides, waiting, anticipating, wanting. This long hungry gaze seemed to prompt Kylo to fold his surcoat and tunic back from his lap, to provide easier access. Hux considered this to be rather interesting and worthy of further exploration, as he dropped gracefully to his knees.

He pressed his palm against the contours of Kylo’s erection, prompting a corresponding throb in his own.

The Knight’s clothes continued to be unreasonable. His trousers were sufficiently high-waisted that in order to reach the top of the fly and get into the damn things, Hux had to shove his hand up under Ren’s stiff and constricting belt. Ren did seem to notice and loosened his belt slightly. Absurd, really, the Master of the Knights of Ren taking pity on the fumbling hands of the First Order’s highest ranking officer.

Freed from his clothing, Ren was big but not really exceptionally so. Hux also noted a fresh, standard soap smell. Clearly, Ren had taken a shower shortly before making this rendezvous. Again, interesting.

As he stroked Ren’s cock from base to tip, Hux was briefly in two minds as to whether to remove his gloves. There would be ample opportunity in the future to take it in his bare hands, and he had at this point only promised his mouth. The gloves stayed on. His expert fingers slid Ren’s foreskin back and forth, toying with him, waiting for Ren to break and beg.

It did not take long.

“General, please. Your mouth. Now.’

Hux took a good few inches of him into his mouth, closing down tight with his lips and probing at veins with his tongue. Rising up again then sucking hard, he could tell that Ren was trying to hold his breath, trying not to make a sound. He kept sucking and working his tongue, and Ren finally let slip a gasp, made harsh by his mask. His right hand tucked under Ren’s balls, and he allowed his fingers to caress and very gently manipulate them.

He tucked his left thumb into a tight fist, a trick he had learnt long ago; and took as much of Ren’s cock as he physically could, flattening his tongue against the length of it and caressing the head of it with his throat. More sharp and staticky noises came from the metal mask above.

Long fingers strayed through his hair. He had initially been expecting Kylo to grab him by the back of the neck and fuck his mouth without much delicacy, but the way things had gone, this curious tenderness seemed less surprising. He blinked a few times, as if to dispel a distraction, and kept working with his mouth. Kylo’s hands left his hair, and he kept on sucking deep, then lifting, flourishing his tongue over the head and dropping. He tasted a little more salt now. His right hand was on Kylo’s hip, feeling muscles twitch and roll beneath the surface.

Then came that telltale sound of servomotors hissing. Kylo was taking the helmet off after all. So, then. Without the mask, his noises of pleasure were more affecting than Hux had reckoned on. Hux was grateful for having the discipline and strength of character not to do as Ren himself had done, and reach into his own pants like an animal when he was supposed to be giving another man pleasure. Instead he felt himself moan gladly and pathetically around the hot, hard flesh in his mouth.

Beside him, Kylo’s fist grabbed ineffectually at the upholstery. 

“Hux… oh, Hux… fuck…”

His cock, already desperately hard, ached at the sound of his name being called.

Ren came, salt-bleachy and copiously, on the back of Hux’s tongue. Hux swallowed several times, coaxing more out of him, enjoying the spasms of Ren’s cock in his mouth.

Satisfied now that he had taken everything, Hux tucked Ren’s softening cock back into his clothes, and buttoned up the fly of his trousers. Looking up at Ren, he saw his head lolled back against the wall, hair sweaty and wild, cheeks flushed, still breathing in quick gasps. Hux stood and briefly rubbed his knees before lowering himself to the couch to straddle Ren. 

“Kiss me.” Ren’s eyes were half closed. “Kiss me. I want to taste…” He sounded half-gone, half-drugged. Hux wondered who had seen him like this before. It was extremely doubtful that anyone on the ship had. What Ren got up to on his missions was another thing. 

Hux leaned down and kissed him, letting him drink in his own taste. From the way he sucked on Hux’s tongue, he seemed to relish it.

“Thank you.”

“Good, then?”

“Yes. Very.” Kylo looked away. He seemed almost embarrassed. “I should go.”

“Go if you like, stay if you like. I had hoped to be seeing you in rather less than this,” Hux tugged at Kylo’s black drapery, “but we can save it for next time.”

“Next time. Yes.” Kylo could still not quite make eye contact.

Hux reluctantly clambered off him.

“Did you think it was going to be clothed fumbles and hasty blowjobs every single time?” he asked. “When I do something, I do it properly. You should know that.”

“Until next time, General.”

“Until next time. I will comm you with arrangements.”

Ren, by now helmeted and not looking to the casual observer anything other than his usual intimidating mass, nodded curtly and left.

General Hux sat down on his couch, the couch he never usually sat on at all, in the place where Kylo Ren had sat, peeled off one glove and slipped his hand into his pants. He pretended he was not picking up the scent of Ren’s hair and sweat as he stroked himself frantically and ecstatically, only grabbing a handkerchief from his pocket at the last possible moment.

 

***

 

Hux made some slight rearrangements to his work calendar in order to give himself an uninterrupted stretch of private work time after he had served his two shifts of command duty. He chose to take this private work time in his own personal quarters rather than in his office on the command deck. He would be very unlikely to be interrupted that way. He tapped at a screen of FirstProject on his desk console and made a few notes on his datapad. Tomorrow’s site visit was scheduled to take three hours, and if he could squeeze in a meeting with the team running shock tests on Starkiller’s secondary magnetic array, he would free up time next week for a proper run-down on failsafe procedures with the focusing crystal technicians. Each extra pull of progress counted. Each extra day he could wring from the schedule counted. 

The Supreme Leader would be pleased; surely more pleased with the ideal weapon than with whatever relic or sack of body parts Kylo Ren might or might not manage to present. The corpse of some village conjuror from a nasty little backwater, versus the decisive weapon that would hand the galaxy to the First Order? There was no contest. He preened and imagined medals.

His door control panel indicated a visitor. Kylo Ren was on time. Hux cleared him to enter and continued to prod at his work. It would not do to appear too keen.

“Still busy, General?”

“Of course. There is always progress to check. If I don’t keep on top of things, they could slip. And I won’t have that.”

“We have an appointment.”

Hux made a few more taps at his desk console before swivelling in his chair. Ren was leaning against the wall, looking attentive. He held his helmet under one arm.

“So, do I get to see how small you are under all that padding?”

Hux only let a twitch of his lip and brow show his feeling. “You might do. Don’t let that stop you from undressing. I didn’t invite you here for both of us to stand around like a pair of troopers on guard.”

Kylo placed his helmet on Hux’s table, then removed his faintly ridiculous hooded cowl. It had clearly once been a much longer cloak before it had been reduced and tattered by battle and misfortune. Without it, the broad span of his shoulders was even more apparent.

“Enjoying this?” he asked.

Hux leant back in his chair and allowed the faintest of smiles. “Why? Am I not supposed to?”

Ren unclipped his lightsaber and placed it on the table, then unfastened his belt and threw it on the couch. He peeled his gloves off without ceremony, which was mildly disappointing. Next, he undid something at one side of his surcoat, loosening it enough for it to be drawn surprisingly gracefully over his head. The pleated tunic underneath hugged as close to Ren’s torso as it did to his arms. Hux had, on occasion, found himself temporarily distracted by the shape of Ren’s arms, though he would barely admit it even to himself. 

The tunic had hidden hook and eye fastenings down the front, requiring Ren to dip his head in order to see them well enough to carefully undo them. From this angle his face was particularly striking. His hair, his stupid, long, silky hair, hung about his cheeks in an unbearably alluring fashion and his long bony nose was simply elegant. Hux sucked on his bottom lip.

Ren shrugged the tunic off his shoulders and very slowly shucked each arm from its sleeve. Hux felt his breath get hot and heavy in his lungs. To have Ren’s arms slowly and temptingly revealed like this was delicious. The sleeves were so tight that it would not be possible to remove them with any great speed, but it certainly seemed that Ren was lingering on the process more than necessary. Tunic and surcoat both loosely folded on Hux’s couch, Kylo Ren now stood before him in undershirt (short sleeved), trousers (their slight sheen showing off the contours of everything beneath), and boots. His arms were, Hux noted, indeed splendid. Muscles well defined but not bulky, and dotted, like Ren’s face, with dark moles.

The sight of Ren bending down to loosen his boots was marvellous in itself. He toed them off, then undid his trousers and peeled them off, and finally discarded his undershirt. Hux wondered if it would have been better with lascivious, performative eye contact. He decided not. He was simply outstandingly fortunate to stand and watch the Knight get undressed. Whether or not it made up for the man’s infuriating demeanour in all other contexts seemed utterly irrelevant. He really was exceptionally fortunate to witness this.  

Hux walked slowly around Kylo, appraising him. His broad, beautiful back was laced with a network of thin scars. Some were pink and recent. Hux sucked in a breath. The training Ren went through was quite intense, clearly. Or perhaps the Knights of Ren practiced mortification of the flesh. Whichever was the case, Kylo had come to him this evening for the pleasures of the flesh, not for its torments. Glancing down as he circled back around to face him again, his eyes lingered on the outline of Ren’s hardening cock in his underpants.

“Take those off, and go and lie down on the bed,” he commanded. Ren hooked his thumbs into the waistband, and pulled them down over his thighs, letting his cock spring free before stepping out of them. Hux’s undershirt was extremely hot against his skin. He stood and watched Kylo walk to the bedroom, in hungry awe at the way the muscles of the Knight’s back moved, at the shape of him. How had he been keeping this sculpture, this perfection, under so much wrapping for so long?

A man so disciplined as General Hux had little use for such turns of phrase as “I could not keep my hands off him,” yet when he followed Ren to the bed he immediately began a long feast of touching Ren’s body. His gloved hands trailed over Ren’s arms and shoulders, lingering over each dark mole, the curving line of each muscle. Ren’s eyes were lazy below their lids, his breathing deep – he seemed calmed by the gentle play of Hux’s gloves over his skin.

This, he realised, would be the “why” of it. This would be the transaction. Kylo Ren seemed to be quietened, at least temporarily, by physical pleasure, and a calmer Kylo Ren would be very good news for the personnel of both the Star Destroyer _Finalizer_ and his own dear Starkiller Base. In that regard, this liaison could be considered to serve the interests of the Order.

The fact that General Hux felt his heart thump with desire and his blood seethe with arousal at the sight of Kylo Ren’s naked skin was an afterthought.   

“You’re still wearing your uniform.”

Hux raised his eyebrows and made a tiny pout. “So I am. Me: all neatly done up. You: such an awful, horrendous beautiful mess.” He brushed a finger against one of Kylo’s lovely prominent nipples. A sharp hiss came from Kylo’s mouth followed by a shivery exhale. This would be splendid. He lowered his head towards Kylo’s torso, stopping a couple of centimetres shy and breathing hotly against Kylo’s skin. A shift against the pillows told him that Kylo was raising his head to get a better look.

Kylo panted and then blurted out, “Hux, just do it, please.”

“This?” Hux asked, and extended his tongue to probe gently against Kylo’s nipple. The noises that came from Kylo’s throat as he circled his tongue were, Hux thought, their own reward.  However he might disturb the machinery of Hux’s working life, Hux would always have this; the memory of the fantastic sounds Kylo was making, and of the lovely nub of Kylo’s flesh, firm beneath the tip of his tongue and between his lips. He nipped very gently with his teeth, and Kylo Ren gave an actual squeal of pleasure before sighing raggedly.

“You should take off your uniform,” Kylo breathed.

Hux lifted his lips from Ren’s chest. “Should I?”

“I want to see you.”

“If you don’t think you’ll be put off, seeing how _small_ I am under all this padding.”

“Stop making excuses. This,” Ren tugged dismissively at the fabric of Hux’s jacket, “needs to be gone.” He looked pointedly down at his cock, which was already leaking against his belly. “If you don’t, I could make a terrible mess all over it.”

This was good reasoning. Hux undid the fastenings of his jacket, stood, then precisely and with great care removed his belt and his jacket, folding the belt and draping the jacket, and all its padding, carefully on the back of a chair. There it was now, done, the part that he had been ever so slightly wanting to avoid. He then removed his boots and his socks, tucking each sock neatly over the rim of its boot.  

“I can keep the gloves on.”

“No. Take them off. I like them, but take them off.” 

Hux bit at one glove and drew his hand slowly out, then the other one. He hoped this might be an object lesson for Kylo in how to remove the gloves in this sort of situation. For future reference. He placed them, too, on the chair. 

“Hurry up,” Ren complained, as Hux unfastened the buttons at the knee of his breeches. He unfastened the buttons of his fly with measured pace, removed the breeches and folded them with practised hands. Undershirt followed, then finally Hux stepped out of his underpants.

“You look to be about the size I had expected.” Hux was momentarily unsure if Ren was talking about the width of his shoulders or the size of his dick, which he had to remind himself Ren had already seen. In either case, it could be considered rude, mildly unnerving and absolutely typical of the man.

“Come here.”

Hux climbed back onto his bed beside Ren, and once again slid his hands, this time his own bare hands, over Ren’s glorious, magnificent form. He was hot and smooth and there was something electric about him. Hux did not, it turned out, want to take his hands off him at all.

Ren’s broad hands came up onto his shoulders. “Narrow here,” Ren began, intrigued rather than taunting, “but stronger than you look, I think.” Hux had in the past been called “wiry” by people who appreciated that he had capacity for endurance.

Hux pressed himself against Ren, embracing him and sucking kisses against his collarbone. He had meant to pace himself more, to choreograph what he had though of as the seduction, but the situation had overtaken him. He needed to be pressed close, in Ren’s arms, soaking up his warmth and feeling the power of him beating and pulsing beneath the surface of his skin. The plan, like so many of Hux’s plans, had not survived contact with Kylo Ren.

They had rolled onto their sides, facing one another. Hux tucked a leg over Ren’s thigh and gently rocked his hips against him, feeling Ren’s dick wet and slick against his skin. With one arm clutching against Ren’s broad back, Hux tucked his face into the crook of Ren’s neck, and listened to the breathy sounds he was making.

“Were you waiting for this, today?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“As you stalked about, terrorising my officers and soldiers?”

“I don’t terrorise,” Ren murmured. One of his massive hands was on Hux’s back, descending to the slight curve of his arse. “Where’s that strength of will, General? I was expecting you to take from me.”

“Were you.” This bloody man couldn’t simply want to be fucked, couldn’t ask for it, couldn’t beg for it, couldn’t even present himself and hope; he had to goad Hux into it, make some chiding reference to that spurious proverb he’d come out with before, about being strongest when taking what one desired. 

Hux untangled himself. “Get on your front, then. Since that’s what you want.” Kylo did as he was told. “Don’t just fuck the mattress. You could do that in your own quarters.” Kylo stilled his hips and lifted them from the bed.

“Fucking hell, you’re beautiful,” Hux whispered, not really for Kylo to hear. It was the shape of his back, covered in those dark dotted moles and lined with a net of thin silver scars; it was the curved mounds of his arse that were, by virtue of the angle of his legs, parted and inviting. It was everything. He was desire personified; he was everything that Hux had ever wanted to be allowed to sink into.

Hux slid his hands over Ren’s back, over his narrow waist and onto his buttocks, appreciating how Ren arched back into his touch. His fingers trailed down the cleft of Ren’s arse and he slowly, gently, circled a fingertip around Ren’s arsehole. He pressed the pad of his thumb against it and felt it twitch.

“Hmm, so you like that.” 

Ren’s affirmation was muffled in the pillows, but he pushed back hungrily into the touch. His hair, spread out in a dark corona, tossed and shook.

Hux shifted his thumb downwards and pressed firmly against Ren’s perineum. He bit his lip as Ren gasped and arched his back. With his other hand, he reached for his bedside drawer.

“Nothing is won without preparation.” Hux poured lubricant over his fingers, savouring the look and feel of it, rubbing his fingers together to warm them a little. He massaged it over Kylo’s arse, and it twitched slightly open for him, just enough for one finger to slip in. He worked his finger slowly and surely further in. His chest tightened and he blushed with the knowledge that he was actually doing this to the actual Kylo Ren, master of the Knights of Ren, heir of Lord Vader, tormentor of the officers and crew of the _Finalizer_ and his very own personal nemesis.

Kylo made another noise and arched his back again as Hux hit the spot, this time from the inside. Two fingers now, it was; slowly, gradually, slipping past the ring of muscle, spreading apart, opening him. All the time, muffled noises breathed into the pillow and a sheen of sweat creeping across the hollow of his back. Three fingers, and Kylo pushing back against them.

“Hux, please.”

“So demanding.”

Hux slipped his hand from Ren’s body and smiled to himself at the needy whimper he let out at its loss. More lube, plenty of it, coating his dick with it in a few slow strokes and slathering the rest onto and into Ren. He lined himself up with one hand and placed the less lube-slick hand on Ren’s waist.

Slowly, almost more slowly than he could bear, he slipped in. It was so hot. So tight, so warm, so velvety and enveloping. Hux paused part way and closed his eyes, listening with lip-bitten relish to the sounds Kylo made as he gave a few tentative, shallow strokes. Kylo had turned his head to one side, so Hux could see his face, flushed, somewhat slack in the jaw, eyes fluttering half open. 

“Fuck me, Hux. Fuck me. Please.”

Pushing a little further in, Hux adjusted the angle of their bodies, pleased at how easy it was to shift Ren to exactly the position he wanted him in. He took an easy, slow rhythm at first, building more pleasure with each thrust.

“Yes, yes there, it’s so good, please, more, it’s…” 

“There. That’s what you like.”

In response, Kylo simply made rough sighs that were almost moans.

“Sit back onto me if you want. Sit up on your knees. Like that.”

From this position it was easy to reach a hand onto Kylo’s splendid chest. Hux toyed with Kylo’s nipple, pinching between the sides of his forefinger and middle finger, enjoying every throaty “oh,” he drew from him. 

Kylo found a suitable rhythm and leant his head back, seeming to lose himself in pleasure. His hair brushed against Hux’s face, and the maddening, intoxicating scent of it drew Hux further in. 

He buried his face in Ren’s neck, biting him, sucking hard to leave a ragged red mark that would turn into a bruise hidden from everyone except the two of them by the high collar Ren wore. Hux groaned at the thought of leaving hidden marks on him, altering him, tagging him, leaving something behind to admire later. 

Ren moaned and pleaded. Hux reached down to his cock, so hot and so hard, and stroked him firmly, feeling his body tense and start to twitch and tremble. He came with a full-throated yell. That sound and the clutch of him around Hux’s cock had Hux thrusting up into him frantically, chasing and pouncing on his own release, ignoring for a moment the warm wetness spilling between his fingers. He bit into Ren’s shoulder again as pleasure crashed through him.

Ren panted heavily. “You savage little animal,” he muttered. Hux would hold that as the highest praise Ren had ever given him. His sweaty brow stuck to Kylo’s flushed shoulder. His hands on Kylo’s hips, he pulled slowly out.

Ren slumped down onto the bed. Hux was increasingly aware of how disgusting he felt.

“I’m not lying here like this. We need to wash.”

Hux stood and made his way to the refresher, and showered off quickly and without fuss. Soon he would need to be himself again, neat and combed and dressed and on a conference call that included one of his chief military rivals, the sly, ambitious Admiral Nareese of the Star Destroyer _Vindicator_. It would not do to dwell on the physical after glow of what had just happened.

“You too. You can’t go about like that.” He thought with revulsion that Kylo Ren probably could go about like that. He probably could put his clothes back on and go about his appalling business with come dripping down his thighs. He would probably like it.

Ren levered himself up from the bed with a rough sigh, and went to wash himself. 

They dressed again in silence. 

Hux adjusted his belt, then his collar, and manipulated each finger of his gloves into the perfect alignment. 

“Don’t think this means I like you,” he said.

Ren’s rage was sudden. “Don’t you fucking dare call me stupid.”

Hux’s desk chair shot towards the wall and hit it with a clanging thud. It fell to the floor, leaving a visible dent in the wall.

Ren’s eyes blazed. “Of course I don’t think you like me. What would I do with such a thing. Perhaps it is you who is having… misconceptions.”

Hux stood perfectly straight.

Kylo Ren placed the helmet on his head and clipped it shut.

“Do not underestimate me.”

He opened the door and stormed away.

 _Don’t fucking underestimate me, either, you little shit_ , thought Hux. _After what I’ve just done to you_. 

He sent an urgent email to Facilities requesting a new desk chair, and began to think of how he might put Kylo Ren back in his place. The arrogant Knight of Ren would learn that he was not strictly acting in his own best interest.  But first, it was time to send the same basic message to the commanding officer of the _Vindicator_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So emotionally defensive, these chaps. It really is a shame.


	4. A Busy Man

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hux has another site visit to Starkiller Base, without Ren. He takes an early dinner and relaxes in his quarters, with Ren, before work catches up with him again.

Hux had subtly underlined the flagship status of the _Finalizer_ while on his conference call, and had been subtly backed up by other members of High Command. Admiral Nareese of the _Vindicator_ had also been reminded that command of the forthcoming generation of First Order Star Destroyers would be decided by Supreme Leader Snoke, and by him alone.

Having headed off the ambitions of his military rival, Hux continued his work, and went to his bed reasonably satisfied, although still steadily angry with Kylo Ren. 

At 0800, when General Hux strode through the flight deck to the waiting shuttle, he was confident that Kylo Ren would not be accompanying him this time. Ren’s basic drive to sulk would, he felt, have the upper hand over his basic drive to annoy. Nonetheless, he was quietly relieved when the pilot closed the hatch and he found himself securely buckled into his seat in the company of Colonel Datoo, Major Linod, Colonel Havord and Lieutenant Mitaka. Everyone was wearing a nice crisp uniform. Nobody was robed, cowled, or masked. 

The site visit commenced with a short, efficient briefing from Major Linod. Next came an excursion to precinct 104 in order to view insulation chambers near the base’s solar plasma intake cavity. The insulation chambers were of a sandwich construction of aerogels layered with blown tauntaun fur. They were not, Hux had to admit, particularly exciting. Despite the supposedly rigorous processing of the raw materials, an odour of tauntaun could be detected, and Colonel Havord graciously escorted the team back out of the chamber before the smell began to permeate the officers’ uniforms.

The next part of the site visit took them, via speeder, through a series of tunnels to a large turbine hall. This was another electrical power generation plant that, when the Starkiller weapon was charging, would use coolant circulated from the magnetic array to turn turbines and generate power. The power generated would keep the magnetic array itself energised, and the solar plasma feeding steadily through Starkiller’s dark energy condenser. It was an old form of technology; though, used in this way, Hux thought it extremely elegant. Even if he did say so himself.

 On the way, Hux swore he felt some tiny fragment of something fall from the cavern roof and land in his neck, between his cap and his collar. Disgusting. One didn’t get bits of dirt falling down one’s neck on a Star Destroyer.

Two rotating equipment engineers, one military and one from a contractor, were on hand to discuss commissioning, start-up and an ongoing maintenance schedule. 

Hux was pleased to see Mitaka taking notes and asking sensible questions about intake pressure and outlet pressure. He took an interest in Mitaka’s career, when he had the time, as one Academy valedictorian looking out for another. The young man was delightfully competent, quick-thinking and dedicated, and Hux was confident that he would one day oversee such a massive project in his own right. 

Returning from the turbine hall, Hux was glad to be able to sit down in a meeting room with Havord, Linod and the team of three engineers who would be conducting tests on Starkiller’s secondary magnetic array. Thankfully, the test schedule was, though tight, acceptable to everyone. Hux had no wish to ask his people to attempt the impossible: to do so was always counterproductive. The lead test engineer asked Colonel Havord to be certain to inform her of any planned work on Starkiller’s power generation plants, as the test procedure required a very steady power supply.

“When do you intend to start up the magnets?” Linod asked the lead test engineer.

“Week 207 day 3 is our schedule, major,” she said. “We intend to ramp up to half field strength between 0900 and 1000h.”

“Are all personnel briefed on safe operating clearances?” asked Hux.

“Yes, sir,” Havord said. “There is a safety briefing for all site personnel week 206 day 6. Any troopers rostered to be on site from week 207 onwards must attend.”

“Good. I will raise that with Captain Phasma. She will check the rosters. Troops transferring from the _Finalizer_ must see that briefing. We will arrange a holoprojection session on board. Coordinate with the crew of the _Vindicator_ , too.”

“Very good, sir.”

If he got the slightest hint that anyone on the _Vindicator_ was dragging their heels with respect to organising a holoprojection of the safety briefing, he would consider it a deliberate act of spite and petty vengeance on the part of that awful little climber Nareese, and he would have Nareese’s balls as paperweights. 

Hux considered for a moment his other chief rival, and let out a very short and subdued sound that might almost have been a chuckle.

”Sir?”

“Nothing, really, Colonel. I thought,” he said with a smirk, “that I might have Kylo Ren attend that safety briefing.”

There was a very brief ripple of laughter around the table.

 

***

 

Hux returned from Starkiller feeling pleased about progress. There was still a tremendous amount of work to be done, but his people were capable. He might even reward himself with a dram of whisky this evening (one finger-width of Hegarian single malt whisky, carefully poured and slowly, lengthily savoured, as per the General’s longstanding reward ritual).

Nothing, however, would satisfy Kylo Ren, who was intent on picking a fight once again.

“General, how is progress on the base?” he barked as soon as he caught up with Hux.

“Everything is going extremely well and according to plan.”

“Really? I doubt you capable.”

“Oh, let’s not _underestimate_ each other,” Hux said, imbuing the word with as much bitterness as he could muster.

“I don’t underestimate you. I should have barely thought it possible, General.” 

Hux cursed Kylo Ren for an absolute little shit. “My estimation of you, other than in _certain_ regards, has lowered.”

“Your opinion is meaningless to me.”

“Ren, you are talking yourself out of a good thing.” Hux lowered his voice to a hiss inaudible to anyone standing further than half a metre. “Because I should think that my opinion of where I might like to put my dick and where I might like you to put yours, are highly meaningful to you.”

Ren stood frozen to the spot for five whole delicious seconds before stalking off.

 

***

 

 Hux rarely enjoyed receiving a comm text from Kylo Ren. This was mainly because Ren had no idea how to compose a comm text. He was not like Havord or Mitaka, who both communicated concisely and crisply and rarely left one needing to ask time-wasting questions. He was not like Phasma, who admittedly could be brief to the point of obscurity if one did not know how to decipher her Stormtrooper jargon and abbreviations. Ren’s texts were short, often badly typed, and always seemed to be missing some vital piece of information such that one needed to ask for clarification, at which point he would treat one like some sort of imbecile for not being able to guess.

Hux had just received a comm text from Kylo Ren. It said, “Want to see you,” with no other context, no suggested time or place, nothing.

Another comm text followed a few minutes later. It read, “For sex.” Hux almost laughed. What the hell else for? Still no suggested time, though. He replied. “1945h suit you?”

“OK. Want it now but can wait.”

Hux couldn’t really approve of such blatant and unrestrained neediness, but on the other hand there was something rather appealing about being urgently desired. Thoughts of slowly sipping at a dram of Old Star Navigator receded from his mind in favour of his rendezvous with Ren. He took an early dinner and, while forking over his omelette, found himself eagerly anticipating. Even though there was the matter of Ren’s destructive emotional outburst to be dealt with.

At 1945h on the dot, Ren appeared, carrying his helmet under his arm. He looked at Hux’s new desk chair and lowered his eyes in embarrassment. 

Hux stared pointedly at the dent which remained in his durasteel wall, then stood and took three quick steps to stand within half a metre of Ren.

“Now, you listen to me, “ Hux said, leaning close. “If you ever want me to touch you again, with any part of my body whatsoever, you will behave. You will not lash out like a child because of some pathetic little contest of who hates whom more.”

“I don’t like you, you don’t like me and we’re all so stupid we need it pointed out,” Ren chanted in a truly obnoxious sing-song tone.

“Good,” Hux said with a rather artificial brightness. “Boots off before you go in the other room, if you don’t mind,” he added. 

Kylo shrugged and complied. Hux gave the side-eye to Ren’s socks, which appeared distinctly better than military issue. He thought he was the only man who was obtaining superior socks on the black market. He would have to find out where Kylo Ren was getting them. A word with Chief Petty Officer Tillich in requisitioning would be in order. Perhaps a few extra credits would have to change hands.

“What’s in the box?” Kylo was pointing at a wooden chest, about 50cm cubed, that stood by the partition dividing the General’s living quarters from his sleeping quarters.

“Personal items.”

“You’re being shy with me. Why?”

Hux tutted. “In this chest,” he sighed, squatting down and opening it to display a teapot and four small cups and saucers all of a blue on white pattern and each cradled in a nest of cushioning foam, “is a ceramic ware tea service of the type traditionally used on my mother’s home world.” He looked up at Ren with a little smirk. “So, did you come here to take tea with me,” he asked, rising again to his feet, “or was it for the sex?”

“You were drinking tea earlier. There’s a mug on your desk. Not one of those. You don’t use these.”

“No, because this is not for everyday use. It’s for special occasions.”

“You have no good reason to have it.”

Hux took a breath and almost unleashed a long stream of bitter explanation about how he had the chest with him because that was the entire bloody point of the thing. You were given a gift to commemorate a promotion or the command of a new vessel, you damn well kept the thing with you. Did this absurd child have no concept of ritual gift-giving, no concept of doing what you were expected to do precisely because you were expected to do it? Ridiculous question. Sometimes Hux wondered how Kylo Ren could profess an attachment to ultimate order and peace, when he seemed to have no bloody idea about how order and method worked in the day to day.

Hux did not say any of this, and served Ren with a blank look instead.   

“The teacups are fragile and unnecessary,” Ren continued.

“You insult me a great deal for someone who is hoping to be fucked.”

“You’d do it anyway.”

“Let me at least wash my face. I always feel mildly grubby after spending time in those caverns and tunnels.”

Hux undressed neatly and methodically to his undershirt and shorts, and stepped into the refresher to wash his face. He considered what he actually wanted, and washed more than his face.

Stepping out of the refresher, he was met by the sight of Kylo Ren lounging, entirely naked, on the bed, propped up on pillows. One arm was arranged behind his head, with the other hand slowly stroking his cock. One knee was raised and his hips tilted in such a way as to show the whole tableau in what he must have considered to be the most alluring light. 

Hux hated it. He hated Kylo’s arrogant “come and get it” pose, and he hated it with vehemence as he stepped forward, through the suddenly viscous air, towards it. He hated it as he crawled slowly up the bed, running his hand lightly over the dark hair of Kylo’s legs, stopping half way to suck biting kisses into the tender meat of Kylo’s inner thighs. He hated it as he took Kylo’s cock from his hand and breathed hot breath onto it before licking it in one fat wet stroke of his tongue and finally taking it into his mouth and sucking it.

Ren was deliciously hard in his mouth. What he wanted, though, was to feel Ren inside him; to have this hot, hard, silky thing, and the heartbeat pulsing through its veins, in him; to make it belong to him. He found himself lowering his weight down onto one tucked-under knee, just to gain some little bit of friction from Ren’s leg. Tilting his hips just to rub himself on the man’s calf muscle; he felt pathetic, but at the same time alive and alight.

Hux slipped his mouth from Ren’s cock and tongued it once more, almost as if in a fond farewell. He slid up Ren’s body, splaying his long fingers over the Knight’s firm muscles and smooth hot skin. Finding Ren’s nipples impossible to ignore or bypass, he dipped his mouth to lick and suck again, smiling to himself against the firm pillow of Ren’s pectoral at the variety of whining, needy, sounds he was drawing from the man.

As he held himself up on his hands and knees, his cock and balls tight and heavy between his thighs, Ren looked up at him, mouth open, face flushed, wanting.

“This time,” Hux said, “I want you inside me.”

The drawer in Hux’s nightstand opened.

“I can open a drawer by myself. No need to show off.”

“So fussy, General. You will need to relax, you know, if you want…”

“Shh.”

Hux reached for the bottle without any assistance from Ren or his powers, and coated three fingers of his left hand. He reached behind himself and slipped first one finger in, then a second, with a quiet grunt. His upper body subtly undulated with pleasure. 

Kylo looked at Hux’s bottle of lubricant. “This isn’t standard,” he said.

“No. I have it ordered in. It’s particularly good for,” he jerked his head back to indicate what he was doing with his hand, “this.”

“So you keep stocked up. Do you get through a lot? How many of your officers have you readied yourself for, in here?”

“Approximately none of them.”

“Approximately.”

“Actually none. Let’s say it’s been a while. But I like to be prepared. Occasions such as this. You should be grateful.”

“I am.”

“And I don’t have to be accompanied to make use of it. As you can see.”

Kylo’s eyes widened and he let out an “oh.” Apparently the thought of Hux using his fingers on himself for his own pleasure was unexpected.

“You want to know if I think about you? When I’m doing this?”

“Mm. Yes.”

“Not until recently, I didn’t.”

Kylo lay back on Hux’s pillows and seemed to weigh this up. “Hux? Can I?”  Yes, he could. He very much could, with those long thick fingers. Hux slicked them up for him. He watched eagerness, concentration and lust combine on Kylo’s face as he brought his fingers to Hux’s hole and, eyes wide and dark, slipped two of them in.

“I’m not hurting you?”

“No, no, I’d tell you if you were.”

Ren flexed his fingers, making almost as if to tap his fingertips against that lovely secret part of Hux. Along with a fierce burst of pleasure, Hux felt a powerful need to have Ren’s cock inside him and be properly filled.

“Enough of those, now. Let me…” He reached for the bottle and slicked up Ren’s dick, under Ren’s glossy, hungry gaze. 

“Now let me make good use of you,” Hux said, as he lowered himself slowly, feeling himself stretch and accommodate Ren. The weight of arousal deep in his abdomen grew heavier and a wave of pleasure pulsed up his back and down his legs.

Kylo had his neck twisted, chin tucked to his chest, to get a view of his dick sliding into Hux’s body. Hux, for his part, could see and admire the bruises he had bitten into Kylo’s neck and shoulders the day before.

“Not like you’ve been much use otherwise, recently,” Hux said, and Kylo hissed in response. “Don’t take offence at me. Not when you’re actually inside me. It’s rather poor form.” 

Hux bit his lip and rose up and down on Ren, looking down at him, daring him to say something. Ren’s chest was flushed delightfully pink, glowing under a thin sheen of sweat.

After a couple of minutes of Hux taking his pleasure on him in coarse breaths and quiet grunts and groans, Ren spoke. “Here’s something that nobody outside this room will ever know.”

“Other than the obvious?”

“Other than you, ruining yourself on my dick, thinking it’s the best you’ve ever had,” he said through laboured breaths. “Yes. Other than that.”

“Go on.’ Hux rolled his hips and twisted in such a way as to make Kylo gasp.

“You. You’re quite beautiful. Like this.”

Hux was aghast for a second, but Ren’s eyes seemed sincere.

“You’re exquisite. Lovely. Like something  –ahh yes– something that doesn’t belong in a harsh place of war. But you do.”

“I’m not delicate.”

“You almost look it.” Ren had his hands on Hux’s thighs. “You even blush on your legs. It’s lovely.”

Hux closed his eyes and kept rising and falling on Ren’s cock, leaning back, his hands grasping his own ankles.

“I like your hair. It’s falling out of place. Getting messy. Better like this.” 

It was absurd for Ren to be talking like this, flattering him. And true that nobody would ever know it had happened. What the hell was he playing at? 

Hux leant forwards again, braced his hands on Ren’s shoulders and took up a quicker pace.

“For fuck’s sake,” he panted, “touch me, you monster.”

Ren’s hand was on him, palm pressing firmly and fingers manipulating him skilfully. So skilfully that Hux’s moans turned almost to sobs just before he came, thankful, hot and thick all over Ren’s hand. 

Ren's other hand was on Hux’s hip, gripping him tight while he fucked up into him, teeth gritted. He took his own orgasm with a fierce shout. When Hux looked down at him, he was licking his hand clean of Hux’s come, eyes closed, in a state of near bliss.

“Dirty,” Hux said, almost fondly.

Hux felt physically wrung out and mentally slightly high, as he might feel after the now rare occasions when he could have a properly long run on a treadmill in the officers’ gymnasium. He eased himself off of Ren and reached into his nightstand drawer for a tissue or three. _Dirty_ , he thought again. His legs buzzed and his whole body felt warm, limp and fuzzy. Ren seemed to be in a similar state, truly and gloriously pacified.

“When I said that nobody outside this room will know,” Ren said softly, “I meant it. It’s important.”

Hux rolled his eyes. “Obviously no-one else knows. What kind of idiot do you take me for that I would go around telling people?”

“That’s not quite what I meant. No-one else.” Ren sat up and looked at Hux, mouth in a wide pout, fixed and impassive beneath his long nose, eyes slightly narrowed. He accompanied the look with something approaching his familiar self-regarding intonation. “It is a matter of importance. One that I should not have expected you to understand.”

 

***

 

Kylo Ren had dressed and left Hux’s quarters, and Hux, dressed now in his sleep pants and feeling extremely relaxed, set about tidying up after him. The Knight never left things quite as they were supposed to be. The chair on which he’d draped his clothes, not pushed back under the table. Hux’s desk drawer, open, when there was no reason for it to be open. 

Hux’s comm buzzed insistently. He thought of the incoming email alert he’d ignored while taking his pleasure from Ren. The call was from a comm address in the Ministry of Communications. He sighed, swore, and answered it.

“General Hux! Little brother!”

“Ellis, dear! To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“To what do you owe? Dion, you are slacking. Either that or grossly overworked. I sent you an email some while ago. Eight hundred words on the topic of criminality in the New Republic.”

Hux looked at his email.

“Yes, you did. Let me see…”

“You’ve not read it?” Ellis Veltin, _neé_ Hux, was more surprised than disapproving.

General Hux’s brow flexed. “Busy with the base. What line are you on?”

“Office. Secure line.”

“Busy, very fucking busy, with pre-commissioning tests. Thermal shock test schedule is a bloody nightmare. Coordinating a hot test at the firing end, the same. Ugh.”

“I don’t doubt it. I think he pushes you too hard, you know.”

“Careful, Ellis.”

“My loyalty is complete, as is yours,” she said, archly. “If he’s not pushing then you must have been volunteering. Which would be just like you. _‘Pick me, sir, pick me_ ’. Commanding the base, babysitting the apprentice; the rest of High Command must get sick of the sight of your little arm waving in the air.”

“Ellis, save me the sisterly encouragement. I am reading your speech. Is this for a speech or a pamphlet? You don’t say.”

“It’s a bloody pamphlet, if you would just read the email subject line. What the hell has got into you?” 

What indeed. Hux needed to focus. His thighs ached from use and he could still almost feel Ren inside him.

He managed to conduct a reasonable and professional conversation with his sister, adding a little, “hardworking families versus criminal gangs and fraudsters,” zest to her pamphlet. They exchanged a few more sharp-toothed comments, and Hux thanked her for her warning of an impending communication from their mother. Apparently, the perennial topic of marriage and children had come up; at this, the most pivotal moment in his career, when he absolutely and categorically had the least time to spare. Ellis, of course, had already done her duty and provided the family and the Order with two perfectly functional offspring. 

General Hux was unfortunately familiar with the idea that a seat on High Command, command of a Star Destroyer, and _the_ base, replete with _the_ super weapon; could be somehow not enough. But that was life. It was like any situation. One had to see it first of all as it _was_ , or one would never successfully shape it and mould it to how it _should_ be. Victories and justice would come. He would see to that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fake engineering, bickering, sex, AND Hux's awful sister.  
> Hit me up for Ellis Hux headcanons. (she's an absolute croquet demon. Hux, E.V.T and Hux, D.B.M, thoroughly vanquished a pair of Tarkins at croquet in their younger days not long after said Tarkins had had the croquet lawn put down at the Home World One officers' club and there is nothing Huxes like better than getting one over on Tarkins. But that is another story for another day)


	5. A Routine Of Sorts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ren starts staying overnight in Hux's quarters, on occasion. Hux takes decisive action against a potential security leak.

The first time Ren slept in Hux’s bed was not by strict prior arrangement. Hux stayed longer in the fresher than Ren, tidying himself up, making sure his full nightly dental routine had been adhered to, including the full two minutes with the sonic toothbrush and thirty second mouthwash rinse.

After switching off the fresher lights, he stepped back into the sleeping area, groaned and rolled his eyes at the sight of Kylo Ren in his bed, already asleep. Ren was sprawled across the bed, breathing deeply and quietly. Excessive, Hux thought, just like every bloody other thing about him. He climbed in. The Knight’s warmth made the whole bed less cold, so Hux was quite comfortable in the third of the bed that seemed to be his for the moment. He liked the warmth and felt an unbecoming gratitude for it. By the time he fell asleep, he had his face against Ren’s shoulder and one hand against his waist. So warm. So easy to breathe next to. So unlike the Kylo Ren of waking hours.

Hux slept particularly well that night.

In the morning he shooed Ren out as quickly as possible.

“Out. Now. Before people start going to their posts.”

“Yes. I know you don’t want your precious little officers knowing that we’re fucking. Don’t worry,” Ren said with bitter contempt, “I feel your shame. Does it occur to you that I don’t want people to know, either? Don’t want them knowing just how bored I am on this ship.”

“No need for the performance, just get up, get dressed, get out.”

“The only reason I could possibly have for wanting anyone to know where I’d been, is that it would embarrass you. So my shame is the only thing protecting you from yours.”

“How wonderfully symmetrical. What a perfect equilibrium,” Hux spat back.

He found something bitterly charming in the way that Ren turned into his everyday bastard self, and wondered if anyone would ever get him to drop the bloody act. Unlikely.   

Subsequently, the whole damn thing became almost a routine. It might start with mutual undressing, either hurried and barely past the door, or even-paced and meticulous to the point of teasing. It might, on the other hand, start with Hux sitting at his desk, scrolling through email and tapping at spreadsheets, leaving enough room at his feet for Ren to sit and lean his cheek against Hux’s thigh while palming him to full hardness. The temptation to run his fingers through Ren’s hair would be too much trouble to resist, and Ren would lean into the touch almost like a pet. 

Hux might be braced against the wall, Ren’s warm body against him, one overly large hand on his waist, letting pleasure temporarily usurp the thoughts and concerns of the day. To feel definitely and categorically held, sometimes with the assistance of the Force, while being definitely and categorically filled, was a something that the General had come to hold among the finer things in life. He would know that this night he would sleep well.

Ren might murmur things into his ear. _I want you to fuck me until I can’t see. I want you to fuck me until I can barely use the Force. Use me._

Hux would oblige, and would get to hear more babbled and muttered filth. _I need you in me. Fuck me, Hux, please. Harder. Need it._ It was always as Kylo reached incoherence that he seemed to shed some invisible burden, at least, as far as Hux could tell.

Always, on waking, Ren would make haste to get the hell out. Whatever this arrangement was, it did not bleed into working hours.

However, officers had commented that Ren had become easier to work with. Hux certainly found that Ren was, if not outright pleasant as a co-commander, at least a little more easy-going than before. There had been barely any disruptive incidents. Although the quantity of available time for sleep had been diminished in favour of sex, the quality of Hux’s sleep had improved. He would wake feeling rested.

The routine, or arrangement, or whatever it was, appeared to be having a net positive impact. Therefore, it would continue. 

 

***

 

Ren was physically agitated when he appeared at Hux’s door, and seized the General in his arms immediately on entering the room. They grabbed at each other’s clothes, and Hux’s jacket was half undone before Ren seemed to suddenly remember he was wearing his helmet. He unclasped it with shaking hands and threw it onto the couch, before pressing a pale, sweaty cheek to Hux’s face. All Hux could make out from Ren’s muttering as he helped him with the fastenings on Ren’s tunic was his own name and, “Want you, need you.”

“Boots off, Ren, and I’ll take you to bed.”

Ren almost fell, confused, onto the couch and made an attempt to take off his boots. Hux went to his knees and helped. Ren’s breath was still heavy and panting, and his legs, as Hux helped peel away his trousers, were clammy in places and hot in others.

Hux felt that he should really be requiring Ren to take a shower before letting him into his bed, before touching him at any great length, but Ren didn’t honestly seem in any fit state. What the hell had he been doing? Was this the Force? Was it Snoke’s doing?

Hux sat beside Ren, and gathered Ren’s head into his shoulder.

“You are in a state, aren’t you? Let’s see what I can do with you.”

“Need you. Need to feel something,” Ren mumbled. “Closing in. Falling away.”

“I should wash you. You’ll feel better for it. Come on now, Ren, come with me.” Hux led Ren to the fresher and finished undressing them both while the shower water came through hot.

Ren leant against the wall of the shower and let hot water stream over his back. Hux folded himself around him, took a handful of shower gel, and started to wash Ren’s chest and underarms. 

“This is helping,” Hux stated as fact.

He knelt and scrubbed Ren’s feet, then worked his way up his legs. Of all the positions he never thought he’d be in, personal scrubber boy to a Knight of Ren would have been high on the list. But it seemed a perfectly reasonable thing to do. It fulfilled a goal. It got the man clean and ready for his bed, and besides, it was always pleasurable to have his hands on the perfect lines and curves of this animal. He traced a finger over the star map of Ren’s lovely dark dots; he was starting to learn and recognise some of the constellations on him.

“If your body is clean then so is your conscience,” Ren said, suddenly.

Ren stepped out of the shower and let Hux towel him dry.

“I can see,” he said, adding, “there, in the shower door,” as an explanation. Hux glanced towards the shower door, and indeed, their reflections could be made out.

Ren turned around to put his back to Hux, and turned his head again to face their reflections in the shower door.

Hux folded the towel, and put it on the floor. He knelt on it. Ren’s legs and buttocks were particularly smooth where Hux had scrubbed them. He ran his hands over them, then his cheek. He massaged Ren’s buttocks with both hands, kissing in between each pass of his hands, tenderly parting them and kissing closer and closer into the cleft between them.

From above, Ren made noises of appreciation. He was almost certainly watching via his own reflection.

Hux let his lips, tongue, and teeth play gently over Ren’s tender skin, and when he reached Ren’s arsehole, he lavished his tongue on it. Ren sighed and very softly moaned at the wet caresses, growing a little more vocal when Hux tongued particularly firmly at his perineum.

“It’s good. I can see it. So good.”

Hux adjusted his hands to hold Ren’s buttocks apart with one forearm, and slid the other hand around Ren’s thigh. He teased Ren’s cock with slow strokes around the base, and pressed his tongue into his by now twitching hole. Ren moaned softly.

“Can see your hands on me. So good. Feels so good.”

Hux took longer and firmer strokes of Ren’s cock, and slowly fucked him with his tongue. His own cock ached to be where his tongue was. 

Ren was getting more and more vocal now. His legs trembled. He made jerky attempts to fuck Hux’s hand but gave up when it took him off of Hux’s tongue. Hux, of necessity, made haste with his wrist and fingers..

Ren yelled, jerked, and made a mess of the shiny duraplast wall. Hux stood and leant against him again. 

“That helped you.”

“Yes. It helped.”

Ren gathered himself and washed quickly in Hux’s sink.

“Nothing for you? I could suck you. If you want.” His eyes still seemed somewhat glassy.

“In bed,” was Hux’s answer.

 

***

 

Hux was wrenched from his sleep by a shout.

Kylo Ren was sitting upright, shaking.

“Go back to sleep,” Hux muttered.

The Knight’s breathing was punctuated by uneasy grunts that might have been the start of words.

“No…  Can’t…”

All Hux could think to do was to accurately report the facts of the situation and allow Kylo to interpret them. “There is no threat. You are in my personal quarters on the Star Destroyer _Finalizer_. Only senior officers have clearance to be on this deck. As your General I can report that there is no threat to you.”

He laid a hand on Kylo’s shoulder. It seemed to quiet him. “Lie down. It is safe to sleep.” Kylo lay down, and Hux stroked him, tentatively.

Kylo’s breathing became deeper and slower. 

Hux had no idea if he was doing the right thing. It seemed to have worked inasmuch as there was now a sleeping Knight in his bed rather than a panicking one. He was so far out of his zone of normality. This was all too much like hard work. They ought to speak about it in the morning. Re-establish some rules of engagement. Make sure that everyone knew what their role was, and in that way they would be able to carry out that role correctly to the best of their abilities.

In the morning, he did not mention it to Ren at all. It was easier to get up, shave, get dressed, slick and comb his hair; and feel a sense of relief as Ren left. 

General Hux had more important things to do than to clarify the rules of engagement on what was really nothing more than a series of rather good shags. The next time Ren sent him a comm asking to meet, he waited an hour before replying, “Not possible. Too busy with Starkiller. Ask again +3 days.”

On the next day, the +1 of those +3 days, the General stood on the bridge for his first shift of command duty.

From the hallway leading to the command bridge, a thud of boots resounded.

“General Hux!”

_Yes, no need to bloody shout._

“How are you coping with construction and testing, General? I take it there are delays?”

“The test schedule is within acceptable parameters, Ren.”

How typical that Ren would assume that Hux would only fail to prioritise him because of some urgent problem with the project. Evidently he had Ren rattled. Good. He wasn’t going to be at the beck and call of Ren’s libido. And most definitely not of his emotional needs. He would invite Ren back to his bed when he was good and ready.

 

***

 

On the second of those three days, Hux found that he had spoken too soon. An external contractor working on the solar gathering team was no longer present on site. The reason for this contractor’s absence was that he had lost his security clearance. During a routine re-check, it had emerged that the man’s wife’s brother had made some unsavoury contacts with Resistance terrorist sympathisers. And, to add liability upon liability, the wife had picked up a gambling habit. 

Hux would have preferred not to use outside contractors at all on the project, but the fact was that the First Order military did not have enough engineers in certain niche specialisms to make this possible. Commercial partner shipyards neatly tucked away in the Unknown Regions and turning out starships were one thing: the Starkiller weapon was another level of secret entirely.

He immediately called Colonel Havord to find out where the hell this contractor was, and to pick over the exact circumstances of his security re-check. Hux would not tolerate security risks floating around the galaxy like lost comets, with their heads full of First Order military secrets.

“We will discuss schedule in due course. For now I want to know where he is. If you tell me he has already been terminated, you will save me a headache.”

“He is believed to be on his way back to Tapaanis, his home world. Security Bureau inform me that the wife and the brother in law are in custody. You should have an email from the Bureau, sir.”

“I want them fully interrogated. I want to know everything they know, everything they damned well _think_. I’ll send Ren if necessary.”

Hux clenched and unclenched his fists while continuing to question Havord and simultaneously reading the newly arrived email from the First Order Security Bureau. They knew what ship the compromised engineer was on. That ship had a serial number and an itinerary. The man would be caught. The bleed would be staunched.

Hux marched himself to Special Forces Command. He needed to use his legs to work out some of his rage, and some discussions were better had in person.

Once he had briefed the officer in charge he felt marginally better about the situation. He felt a little better again when he stood in the TIE fighter hangar and watched a Special Forces TIE fighter get de-racked and dispatched. Once he had confirmation that the compromised engineer had been terminated and his contacts on board ship questioned, he would rest easier.

Civilians. Bloody civilians and their families, and liabilities upon liabilities.  One didn’t get this sort of thing with Engineering Corps officers, or with Stormtroopers, inculcated with loyalty from birth.

 

***

 

Hux got news of the problem engineer’s summary termination by First Order Special Forces near the end of his first shift of duty on the third day. The tension racked across his upper body instantly dissipated, back to normal levels. He exhaled briskly and thanked the lieutenant who had brought him the information. He felt the need to work out some of the nervous energy he had built up. After his second shift, therefore, he would go to the officers’ gymnasium and have a good long treadmill run. He would be able to catch up on some email on his datapad and tie up the project management loose ends that the whole unfortunate business had generated.

Problems _did_ get resolved. Situations _did_ return to normal. The base and the weapon would be completed. There would be glorious victories. It was all going to be alright. He would make damned sure that it was.

Returning from the gymnasium, General Hux had the misfortune to encounter once again the very man he’d been trying to avoid. The Knight, as was still his infuriating habit, opened the conversation with an oblique accusation.

“You’re motivated by spite.”

“Of course I’m motivated by bloody spite,” Hux bit back.  “And what’s wrong with that? What’s wrong with feeling spite towards the Republic? Towards the criminals and thieves they protect? Towards those who would stand in our way? What’s wrong with feeling spite because you grew up in exile? I find it very bloody motivating. Actually.”

“I’m not complaining,” Ren said. “It’s good. It’s passionate. The strength of your feeling is notable.”  

“Why mention it?”

“You have been keeping me away. Who are you trying to spite by that?”

Hux did not have a ready answer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feelings? Ugh, terrifying, do not want.
> 
> "If your body is clean then so is your conscience" is a line from Bleed Clean by Disco Inferno. (do you bleed clean, or does your blood flow in a mess; do your thoughts move in straight lines)


	6. A Disaster And An Imperfect Resolution

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hux does not respond well to a sudden onset of emotion. Neither does Ren. At all. An unsteady reassessment is made.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content note: violence against property in an emotionally charged intimate partner relationship context.

They tangled lazily, this time, lying side by side and rubbing against each other under the sheets. Ren passed a hand over Hux’s back and kneaded at his waist. The firm pressure was very pleasant indeed. 

Hux kissed and nibbled at Ren’s lips and spread one long fine hand over one broad shoulder blade. His skin was always smooth, always hot. He dug his fingertips in, and Kylo grunted in pleasure laced with pain. He hooked one leg over Kylo’s hip then levered himself up to straddle him. 

Ren sat up, holding Hux above him almost weightless as he arranged the pillows behind him and then seated Hux in his lap. Hux did not complain about this use of the Force in an auxiliary role; he had become almost accustomed to it, and it had to be admitted that it was useful. He rocked and rolled his hips against Ren, gaining sweet friction from Ren’s hot silky dick, and his lovely, hard, smooth sweat-slicked muscles.

“Well, this is nice,” Hux whispered into Ren’s ear, before licking and sucking on his earlobe. Ren had initially been shy about having his ears attended to, but that was something a little earlobe sucking had fixed in fairly short order.

The bottle was in its usual place in the nightstand drawer. Ren reached for it, and slicked up one hand. He slipped his hand down between them and slid it over both their cocks.

“A hand job. What a treat.”

“It is though. Isn’t it?”

“I wasn’t being entirely sarcastic,” Hux muttered into Ren’s hair. “I like your hands. Especially when they’re doing that.”

Ren responded with a tiny fragment of a laugh, and sucked shapeless kisses along Hux’s neck. Hux leant down to kiss him, and grazed their lips together in a mess of hot breath before tonguing distractedly at Ren’s wet and lovely mouth.

The stroke and pull and twist of Ren’s hand was becoming stronger and more insistent. Hux realised he was moaning softly into Ren’s mouth, his breath and voice echoing with Ren’s own.

Ren came first, assisted by the tease and roll of Hux’s thumb on his nipple, but Hux followed soon after.

As they rested, panting, stuck together by their own fluids, Hux made a mental note to block out enough time in his schedule for a long-planned experiment to see if it were possible to make Ren come purely by touching his nipples. He felt it had to be, given time, which was unfortunately in short supply at the moment. 

In any case, it was time to clean up before the whole mess got cold.

After a hot shower, Hux towel dried his hair and had a brief thought about an improvement to a close quarters house-to-house battle simulation for the Stormtrooper cadets. He took his datapad and noted it. Best out of the head and on the list, was the advice he’d read.

Finally, bed.

Ren’s arms were still so warm, and Hux slid very quickly into sleep. 

At 0340h, Ren woke again, tense, overheating, and crying out half formed words and sobs.

Hux put the same procedure in place as he had before. He put an arm around Kylo, and stroked him gently. He spoke soft words of reassurance. “There is no threat. I am here. It’s OK. There is no threat. You can sleep, Ren.” He reached up his other hand and petted Kylo’s hair.  Soon, he felt tense muscles relax under his hands. Kylo’s breathing returned to normal, as Hux continued shushing him and stroking his hair.

He foolishly imagined what it would be like if someone actually cared for Ren, this poor wild creature who was nobody’s. If such a thing were even possible. What would they say? _Hush darling, hush. It’s alright, darling, I promise._

His chest tightened. He felt a deep, inner cold, and a sharp, sour feeling in his stomach.

This time they really needed to speak about it in the morning.

 

***

 

“This isn’t exactly what I signed up for, you know,” Hux said, as he pulled on his jacket. “When we began this arrangement, or whatever it is.”

Ren was attending to the front fastenings of his pleated tunic. He looked up at Hux from under his fringe.

“I’m quite happy for us to entertain one another,” continued Hux. “I find it pleasurable, as I’m sure do you.”

“That is the idea. I come here, we fuck, it’s good. Enough. Tell me what you mean.”

“This business in the middle of the night. Once was one thing, but are we going to make a habit of this?”

“A habit of what?”

“You waking me up in the night and me, ugh,” Hux let out a noise of frustration, “soothing you. Petting you.”

Ren’s eyes narrowed, and his cheek twitched. He turned away, and started to put on the next of his layers.

“It’s not that I want you to be suffering. It’s that I was not under the impression that it was my job to quiet you down. To soothe you.”

Hux should have noticed that Ren’s fists were balled by his side.

“I’m not your mother or your babysitter.”

Hux’s wooden storage chest was hovering five feet above the ground and vibrating violently. The sound of rattling crockery caught Hux’s attention, but too late to forestall the inevitable fall. The sound of rattling crockery became the sound of breaking crockery. The whole chest smashed on the floor, wood splintering at the point of impact. 

“Shit! No! Don’t do that, Ren. My mother gave me that.”

“No! Fuck you. Fuck you, Hux.”

There were broken things everywhere. Fragments of teacup. Sticks and splinters of wood. Ren glared at the broken mess of wood and crockery on the floor. He kicked the largest part of the chest towards the wall. “And fuck your fucking teacups and your fucking _mother_!” Ren screamed the last word, teeth bared. He then took one step towards Hux, who stood, eyes wide, making a visible effort to stay calm and still.

 “You should know,” Ren hissed, “how lucky you are.” 

Hux’s outrage buoyed him. “Lucky, Ren? Lucky in what way? Lucky that you didn’t break me into pieces? You wouldn’t fucking dare.”

Ren’s cheek twitched uncontrollably. His face started to fall.

He looked down, seemingly horrified. Crockery crunched under his boots as he stepped backwards. He turned and left with haste. 

Hux’s shoulders sagged. He bit down on the inside of his cheeks, and let a long sigh out through his nose. This was so unnecessary. How was he going to explain this to his mother? Ren really hadn’t needed to do that. This wasn’t supposed to be happening any more, and certainly not here. In Hux’s own rooms. Not just his ship, not just their base, but his room. Hux had owned few enough personal effects before this little episode.

This would surely be the end of their arrangement.

Hux summoned a maintenance droid to clean up the mess. 

He watched the little droid begin to pick up broken pieces of wood and ceramic and sweep them into an internal holding compartment. There was no point standing and staring, though, really. He sighed, and walked to the command bridge. His bearing was well practised enough that nobody asked him if there was a problem. For that, he was extremely grateful.

 

***

 

A grey-uniformed officer was almost running onto the bridge. This couldn’t be good.

“Captain, report.”

“General Hux, sir. It’s Kylo Ren,sir.”

“What is the nature of the problem?” he asked. He already had a pretty good idea.

“There is a problem in his quarters, sir. I don’t have clearance even to request entry. The droids are agitated, sir.”

A mouse droid had appeared beside them. Lights were blinking indicating it had a message to communicate.

“So I see. Very well. I had best come and assess the situation.” Internally, he cursed.

“Bannel!” he called across the bridge.

“Sir?”

“You have the bridge. I have urgent business.”

“Yes sir!”

Hux accompanied the captain from the command bridge back to the senior officers’ accommodation level. Three droids scurried out of their path.

“He’s certainly upset the droids,” Hux said, attempting a little levity in an attempt to calm the young captain. “Wait here.”

Hux used his command override to get through the outer door to Ren’s quarters. Inside, there was a polygonal hallway. An ozonic smell persisted, and there were scorch marks in the walls. He requested entry to the inner chambers via the access panel, and also called out, “Ren, It’s me. Hux. Let me in.”

The door slid open. The sound of muffled sobbing was immediately apparent, as was the odd smell that indicated recent use of lightsaber on durasteel. Hux stepped though and looked around him.The wall next to the door was a scarred mess. Great gouges, some still red hot; cooling drips and gobbets of metal; black scorch marks: it was a sight Hux had unfortunately seen elsewhere on the _Finalizer_ , but never to this extent. Some part of him inside noted that at least Ren had kept the worst of it to his own bloody quarters where he would have to live with it.

“This was supposed to be making you not do that,” he said, turning until he could properly make out Ren’s slumped, sobbing form sitting against the far wall.

“Is that all this is? Behaviour modification? Keeping me fucking medicated?”

“It’s whatever you think it is, Ren. But what it definitely isn’t, is you destroying my property. Not ‘my ship’ as I like to call her, not your own quarters, but my actual personal property.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m not fucking finished. You listen to me. You do not break my things and then tell me I am lucky you didn’t break me.”

“Hux, that’s not what I meant,” Ren’s distress was pathetic.

“I think it is. I think it is exactly what you meant at the time and you simply can’t face the truth.”

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Really. I don’t think you can be trusted not to. Look at me and look at you. We both know that even without the Force, you could snap me like a twig. I’d put up a fight, but it’d end one way. I’m not afraid of you, make no mistake of that, but. But. You crossed a line today. Several fucking lines.”

“I wouldn’t, I really wouldn’t.”

“You wouldn’t be able to control yourself, and then you’d be crying about it, hauling my broken body to explain to the Supreme Leader that you’d broken one of his things. Can’t imagine he’d be best pleased, can you?”

“It's not like that. You don't know what this feels like.”

“I have work to do. Do not expect to see me off duty.” Hux turned and marched away.

For the next four days, he barely saw Kylo Ren at all. 

 

***

 

The General stood on the command bridge of the _Finalizer_ , hands clasped behind his back, looking out of a broad side viewport on his beautiful Starkiller. 

Captain Phasma approached.

“Have you seen Ren?”

Hux bristled. “No,” he snapped.

“I had matters I wished to discuss with him, sir.”

“Can’t you comm him?”

“I would rather speak face to face. Or helmet to helmet, if you will,” she snorted. “I prefer it. Gets the job done properly.”

“Phasma, may I ask you something?”

“Of course?”

“Do you like working with Kylo Ren?”

“Do I _like_ it? I don’t believe my personal likes or dislikes have anything to do with it. I like to fight alongside him. He is a formidable warrior, sir.”

“What do you like?”

“I like the battlefield. I like to fight. I like to command my troops, to see a unit of troopers working as one. To see all our training brought to reality, in flesh and blood, amid noise and terror, in pride. Sir. Then to wash away the dirt, have a good dinner and a good rest, and go and do it all again the next day.”

“You set a fine example, as well you know.”

“Thank you, sir. Doesn’t answer the question of where the bloody Knight Commander is, though, does it? I can cope with him hiding from you; but, if, by hiding from you, he makes himself scarce from me, well. Not ideal from my point of view. That’s all.”

Hux noted that Phasma, despite styling herself as “a simple soldier” always had the answers without ever being asked the question. He doubted that she even knew that he and Ren had been having this awful catastrophe of not even the beginning of a relationship. If she did, she would consider it none of her concern. Yet she knew that they were avoiding each other. Her opinion, that of a “simple soldier”, was that this was not ideal, and that honest face to face communication was vital if you wanted to get a job done properly. One did not become commander of a force of Stormtroopers without wisdom.

 

***

 

He missed it. He missed the almost routine they’d fallen into. He missed Ren’s body; its curves and planes, its warmth.  He missed the sheer absolute bloody pleasure of fucking, that he hadn’t had for such a long time because there just hadn’t been anyone suitable of appropriate rank, and even if there had been, he hadn’t wanted it so damn fiercely the way he did with Ren. He missed the moments after, when Ren was worn out and calm, and so human. So almost _normal_. Nobody else ever saw him like that. It was the General’s privilege.

Alone in bed, he felt cold. He remembered, with a sick kind of sorrow, the moment of pretence he’d had. “Hush, darling, hush,” he whispered, to himself, to the room, to nothing. The pain was sudden and violent and stabbing. He breathed slowly and deliberately and made an effort to hold back tears. _What have you done to me, you bastard? And what have I done to myself?_

Given that he believed, and had proclaimed, that any sufficiently sophisticated simulation was indistinguishable from reality, he should have known exactly what he had done to himself.

There was a way to rationalise it. It was good for the smooth running of the ship. It was behaviour modification, and it had been working, up to the point where Kylo had completely lost his reason. 

Hux tightened his fist. He would not be lowering himself. He would not be allowing Ren back. It would constitute acquiescing to the tantrums of an intolerable child. He would not be modifying his own behaviour, taking care to avoid the explosive topic of mothers, or whatever the bloody thing was that had set Kylo off this time.

But it was good for the running of the ship. It was good for everyone concerned.

Perhaps this was a case of taking a personal sacrifice, or personal risk, for the greater good.

No more stupid bloody feelings, though. No more of that.

He sent a personal comm to Ren. 

_I would like to see you. My office. 1400h. Hux._

He wondered if this could be the stupidest thing he had ever done. He had a chance to put this whole thing to an end. He had a chance to steer himself back to professional and orderly behaviour, and he had not taken it.

So, Kylo stood in the General’s office with his helmet under one arm. He did not look directly at Hux.

“Your office. Not your rooms. I suppose I no longer merit that intimacy,” he said haughtily, eyebrows arched.

“Stop feeling so sorry for yourself.”

Kylo’s cheek twitched and he sniffed.

“We have things to discuss,” Hux continued. “Firstly. Do you want to carry on?”

“To continue our arrangement?” Kylo sighed. His shoulders sagged. “Yes. I want that.”

“Good.” Hux stayed measured and cold, despite the curious pain stabbing at his chest.

“It isn’t an attachment,” Kylo blurted, nonsensically.

“Who said it was?”

“It’s an action. A series of actions. A practice.”

Hux couldn’t hold back a thin smile. “However you describe it is up to you, Ren. I simply wanted to discuss, briefly, some ground rules.”

“Oh please, General, please do write a protocol document and we shall both sign it.”

“I should like to avoid reoccurrence of… the incident.”

Kylo leant back against the wall and slammed his head back into it, to glare at the ceiling.

Hux carried on. “If we both get something from it, there is no reason why we shouldn’t continue. As long as we avoid becoming distracted.”

“You don’t trust me. You aren’t afraid of me, but you don’t trust me.”

“Well, Ren, there you have it in a nutshell. We shall just have to be a little careful of one another,” Hux added, coldly and brightly. 

“Everyone else is afraid of me.”

“I do wonder why,” Hux said, finally approaching Kylo. He smoothed one gloved thumb over Kylo’s cheek. He had more words to say, he was sure, but all he could find to do with his mouth was to gently brush his lips over Kylo’s. 

Kylo folded his arms around him.

“Let’s not be foolish, then,” Hux said. “At least, not any more foolish than we can realistically help.”

“Hux?”

“Yes?”

“You said, if we both get something from it. You get something from it? Other than simple physical release, I mean.” He took in a sharp breath. “No, I shouldn’t ask that.”

“We both get something from it. I think that’s all we need to know.” Hux felt hundreds of stupid things queuing up in his throat and begging to be spoken out loud. 

_I sleep well when you’re there. At least I did. Who knows if I still will, if it’ll still be… like that. Not seeing as you fucked this up – and you can’t put it right. I don’t trust anyone, by the way, so don’t think you’re special._

Instead, he kissed Kylo again, part in hope and part in the utter lack of it.  

 

***

 

Ren shoved his way into Hux’s office as if the very air in the doorway offended him.

“I have a very strong lead on the location we seek.”

“With the track record of your agents, forgive me if I am not immediately thrilled.”

“None of your soldiers have brought me any sign of what we seek. So I would think twice before criticising, if I were you.”

Hux stood impassive and waited for Ren to continue.

“I have word from two of my Knights, and also from Netal. Perhaps that is a name to encourage your feeble hopes, General.”

“You put a great deal of faith in her.”

“With good reason. Some of the stories you have heard are true.”

“So.” Hux frowned. “What does this mean for your whereabouts?”

“I will be travelling, to follow up these leads.”

“I don’t expect you to work to a strict schedule. So I won’t ask you when you expect to be back.”

“A matter of weeks. Maybe five. Six. Eight.”

“When you do return, I shall be extremely busy.”

“This is not new information.”

“Ren, when I say extremely busy, I mean extremely busy. This is the…”

“…Largest and most complex engineering project the Galaxy has ever seen. How many times do you think I have heard you say it?”

Hux sighed. “Upon completion of the test firing, there will be a drinks reception. Which you are welcome to attend.”

“Oh, am I? Welcome?”

“What I mean is, then we might have some time. And quite possibly not before then.”

Kylo seemed to weigh up Hux’s words, but did not grace them with a direct response.

“General, if I should need the support of troops, I would expect the _Finalizer_ to be made available.”

Hux’s chest grew tight and he felt his fingers curl and tense. Were he not wearing gloves, his fingernails would be cutting crescents into his palms. What part of this did Ren not understand? Final pre-commissioning tests on the largest and most complex engineering project the Galaxy had ever seen meant that his presence was required, here, either on Starkiller or a five minute shuttle ride from it.

“This is the will of the Supreme Leader?”

“It is, General.”

“Then it will be done.”

“There is a map,” Ren said.

This was news to Hux. “Really, an actual map?”

“Yes. You said once in jest that I might have more luck finding the temple if only I had a map. There is a map.”

“And, do we have this map?”

“Not yet. But we will. When I find out where it is and who has it, I will take it. I won’t be stopped.”

“I wish you the best of luck. I mean that.” Hux took Ren in his arms; an awkward embrace which he quickly broke.

“I leave straight away,” Ren said. “I don’t have time to lose. I will communicate.”

Hux stepped back, and saluted.

Kylo Ren turned without another word and left in a swirl of black.

 

***

 

That night, Hux caught himself wondering if he would remember how to sleep deeply without warmth, euphoric exhaustion, or that strange temporary calm he had come to know. He recalled Ren’s words. _“It isn’t an attachment. It’s a series of actions. A practice.”_ Whatever Ren chose to call it, it was a series of actions and a practice that were not available to him and would not be available to him for the forthcoming “ _five, six, eight weeks.”_ He cursed Ren and his lack of precision. He cursed everything about him. He cursed his own stupidity above all else.

Hux would manage the situation. It was what he did. Pick up the sodding pieces, somehow.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Violence against property in an intimate partner relationship context occurs in chapter 6. The violent actions have consequences, but the eventual resolution is, as the chapter title suggests, imperfect.
> 
> Amazing art by its-kylux-baby.
> 
> More notes:  
> 1) I had more fun with the fake engineering than perhaps I should. I always say that if you look to Star Wars (Star Wars!) for hard science fiction you are very much looking in the wrong place. That said, I looked up what we know about Starkiller Base in canon supporting materials, thought about solar plasma and high powered electromagnets, and went to town. I want to write some made-up shit about the oscillating containment field and about the startup and testing procedure for the fractionally refreshing defence shields which would involve TIE fighter squadrons making approaches at various closing velocities while the control room technicians adjusted the refresh rate of the bases's banks of shield generators.  
> 2) It isn't pretending if you're only pretending to pretend. If Hux were self-aware, he'd be *really* dangerous.  
> 3) I shouted at them a lot while writing this.  
> 4) What is it, that's fierce and barely concealed? Well, loathing, and lust, and then maybe near the end, a tiny bit of some other deeply terrifying L word that a chap can't quite bring himself to name or consider.
> 
> This is now part of a series. The latter parts constitute an exercise in self-indulgent wish-fulfilment, so you can feel free to treat this as a self-contained story if you like, or enjoy the sequels if you'd like to see these nerds somewhat transformed by the events of TFA and attempting to face up to themselves and each other.


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